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BRITTANY ^

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I f MORTIMER^MENPES
1 1 1 TEXT ' BY^ D OROTH Y
* MENPES

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BRITTANY

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MARIE JEANNE

BRITTANY- BY

MORTIMER MENPES
TEXT BY DOROTHY
MENPES • PUBLISHED
BY ADAM ^ CHARLES
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Published July, igo5
Eefrinted i<)i2

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

DOUARNENEZ

II.

Rochefort-en-Terre

III.

VlTRE .

IV.

Vannes

QuiMPER

VI.

St. Brieuc .

VII.

Paimpol

VIII.

GuiNGAMP .

IX.

HuELGOAT .

Concarneau

XI.

MORLAIX

XII.

PONT-AVEN .

XIII.

QuiMPERLE .

XIV.

AURAV.

XV.

Belle Isle .

XVI.

St. Anne d'Auray

XVII.

St. Malo .

XVIII.

Mont St. Michel

XIX.

Chateau des Rochers

XX.

Carnac

XXI.

A Romantic Lan

3
15
29
51

77
89
99
107
115
J 23
129
137
165
175
183
197

203
211
225
235
241

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

1. Marie Jeanne

Frontispiece

FACINO PAGE

2. Homeward Bound 4

3. Granmere . . . . •

4. Meditation .....

5. Minding the Babies .

6. A Cottage in Rochefort-en-Terre

7. At Rochefort-en-Terre

8. Mid-day Rest ....

9. A Cottage Home

10. Mediaeval Houses, V^itre

1 1 . Preparing the Mid-day Meal

12. In Church ....

13. Pere Louis

14. Idle Hours

15. La Vieille Mere Perot

Ifi. A Vieillard

17. Place Henri Quatre, Vannes

18. Gossips ....

19. A Cattle Market

20. Bread Stalls

21. In a Breton Kitchen .

22. A Rainy Day at the Fair .

23. In the Porch of the Cathedral, Quimper

24. The Vegetable Market, Quimper

vii

viu

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FACING f-AOB

25. Outside the Catliedral, Quimper

26. By the Side of a Farm

27. On the Road to Bannalec .

28. Debit de Boissons

29. Church of St. Mody

30. Reflections

31. A Sabot-Stall .

32. La Vieillesse

33. A Beggar .

34. A Wayside Shrine, Huelgoat

35. Fishing Boats, Concarneau .

36. At the Fountain, Concarneau

37. Concarneau Harbour .

38. The Sardine Fleet, Concarneau .

39. Watching for the Fishing-fleet, Con car

40. Mediaeval House at Morlaix

41. Outside the Smithy, Pont-Aven

42. In an Auberge, Pont-Aven .

43. A Sand-Cart on the Quay, Pont-Aven

44. Playing on the ' Place,' Pont-Aven

45. On the Quay at Pont-Aven

46. On the Steps of the Mill House, Pont

47. The Bridge, Pont-Aven

48. The Village Forge, Pont Aven .

49. The Village Cobbler

50. The Blind Piper .

51. At the Foire

52. Mid-day

53. A Little Mother

54. Curiosity

55. A Solitary Meal .

56. In the Bois d'Amour

57. A Breton Farmer

58. In the Eye of the Sun

Aven

84
88
92
94
96
100
104
108
112
116
120
122
124
126
128
132
136
140
144
148
152
154
158
160
164
168
174
176
180
184
188
192
198
204

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

59. Sunday . .

60. The Cradle

61. Soupe Maigre

62. D^jeiiner .

63. A Farmhouse Kitchen

64. Marie

65. A Farm Labourer

66. A Little Water-Carrier

67. Weary

68. The Master of the House

69. In the Ingle Nook

70. A Blind Beggar .

71. La Petite Marie .

72. The Little Housewife

73. An Old Woman .

74. A Pig- Market .

75. Household Duties

FACING PAGE
206

210
212
216
218
222
224
226
230
232
234
236
240
242
246
248
252

DOUARN^NEZ

BRITTANY

CHAPTER I

DOUARNENEZ

The gray and somewhat uninteresting village of
Douarndnez undergoes a change when the fishing-
boats come home. Even with your eyes shut,
you would soon know of the advent of the fisher-
men by the downward clatter of myriads of sabots
through the badly-paved steep streets, gathering in
volume and rapidity with each succeeding minute.
The village has been thoroughly wakened up.
Douarnenez is the headquarters of the sardine
fishery, and the home-coming of the sardine boats
is a matter of no little importance. The 9,000
inhabitants of the place are all given up to this in-
dustry. Prosperity, or adversity, depends upon the
faithfulness, or the fickleness, of the httle silver fish
in visiting their shores. Not long ago the sardines
forsook Douarnenez, and great was the desolation

1—2

4 BRIl^l^ANY

and despair which settled upon the people. How-
ever, the season this year is good, and the people
are prosperous.

As one descends the tortuous street leading to
the sea, when the tide is in, everything and every-
one you encounter seem to be in one way or
another connected with sardines. The white-faced
houses are festooned and hung with fine filmy
fishing-nets of a pale cornflower hue, edged with
rows of deep russet-bro^vn corks. Occasionally
they are stretched from house to house across the
street, and one passes beneath triumphal arches of
really glorious gray-blue fishing-nets. This same
little street, which barely an hour ago was practi-
cally empty and deserted, now swarms with big
bronzed fishermen coming up straight from the sea,
laden with their dripping cargo of round brown
baskets half filled with glistening fish. They live
differently from the sleepy villagers — these strap-
ping giants of the sea, with their deep-toned faces,
their hair made tawny by exposure, their blue
eyes, which somehow or other seem so very blue
against the dark red-brown of their complexion,
their reckless, rollicking, yet graceful, sailor's gait.
A sailor always reminds me of a cat amongst a
roomful of crockery : he looks as if he will knock

HOMEWARD BOUND

DOUARNENEZ 5

over something or trip over something every
moment as he swings along in his careless fashion ;
yet he never does.

What a contrast they are, these stalwart fishers
of the deep, to the somewhat pallid, dapper-looking,
half-French hotel and shop keepers, who are the
only men to be seen in the village during the day-
time— these fishermen, with their russet-brown
clothing faded by the salt air into indescribably
rich wallflower tones of gold and orange and
red ! What pranks Mistress Sea plays with the
simple homespun garments of these men, staining
and bleaching them into glorious and unheard-of
combinations of colour, such as would give a clever
London or Parisian dressmaker inspiration for a
dozen gowns, which, if properly adapted, would
take the whole of the fashionable world by storm !
You see blue woollen jerseys faded into greens
and yellows, red berets wondrously shaded in tones
of vermilion and salmon. From almost every
window tarpaulin and yellow oilskin trousers hang
drying ; every woman in the place is busily
employed.

Many a fascinating glimpse one catches at the
doorways when passing, subjects worthy of Peter
de Hooch — a young girl in the white-winged cap

6 BRITTANY

and red crossway shawl of Douarnenez cutting up
squares of cork against the rich dark background
of her home, in which gHstening brass, polished
oak, blue-and-white china, and a redly burning
fii'e can be faintly discerned. A soft buzzing noise,
as of many people singing, occasionally broken by
a shrill treble, and a gi'oup of loafing men, peering
in at a doorway, attract your attention. You gaze
inquisitively within. It is a large shed or barn
filled with hundreds of young girls and women,
with bare feet and skirts tucked up to their knees,
salting and sifting and drying and cooking sardines,
singing together the while as with one voice some
Breton folk-song in a minor key, as they busy
themselves about their v/ork.

It is impossible to describe one's feelings when,
after descending the steep cobbled street, one first
catches sight of the sea at Douarnenez. One can
only stand stock-still for a moment and draw in a
deep breath of astonishment and fulfilment of hopes.

Before you lies a broad expanse of gray-
blue. I can liken it to nothing but the hue of
faded cornflowers. Whether it is the time of day
or not I cannot tell, but sea and sky alike are
flooded with this same strange cornflower hue ; the
hills in the distance are of a deeper cornflower ;

GRANDMERE

douarn£nez 7

and clustered about the quay are many fishing-
barques, sho^ving purply-black against the blue
delicacy of the background.

Over the gi-ay-blue sea are scudding myriads of
brown, double-winged boats, all making for the
little harbour — some in twos, some in threes, others
in flocks, like so many swallows. Close to the dark
cornflower hills is a patch of brilliant verdant green
— so yellow-green that it almost sets your teeth on
edge.

Set down in mere words, this description can
convey no impression of the Bay of Douarn^nez
as 1 saw it that balmy autumn afternoon. My pen
is clogged ; it refuses to interpret my thoughts. It
was a scene that I shall never forget. As the
fishing-boats neared the shore the gorgeously
flaming brown-and-gold and vermilion sails were
hauled down, and in their places appeared the filmy
gray-blue nets hung with rows of brown corks.
The rapidity with which these brown-sailed work-
aday boats changed to gossamer, cornflower-decked,
fairy-like crafts was extraordinary. It was as
if a flight of moths had by the stroke of a
fairy's wand been suddenly transformed to blue-
winged butterflies. In and about their boats the
sailors are working, busy with their day's haul,

8 BRITTANY

picturesque figures standing against the luminous
blue in their sea -toned garments.

On the quay the women are standing in groups,
talking and knitting, and keeping a sharp look-out
for their own particular ' men.' Trim, neat little
figures these women, with their short dark-blue or
red skirts, their gaily -coloured shawls drawn down
to a peak at the back, their light-yellow sabots and
their tightly-fitting lace caps, made to show the
brilliant black hair beneath and the pretty rounded
shape of their heads. Many a time when the corn-
flower-blue sea has turned to sullen black, and the
balmy air is alive with flying foam and roaring
winds, such women must wait in vain on the quay
at Douarn^nez for their men-folk.

The sailor's life is a hard one in Brittany, exposed
as he is in his small boat to the fearful storms of the
Atlantic. But danger and trouble are far distant
on this balmy autumn afternoon : the haul has been
an exceptional one, the little fishing-craft are filled
high with silver fish, fishermen fill the streets with
laden baskets, and the soft murmur of many
women's voices singing at their work is wafted
through the open doorways of the sorting and
counting-houses. Every moment the boats on the
horizon become more and more numerous, the men

DOUARNENEZ 9

being anxious to land their cargo before nightfall ;
the sea, in fact, is dark with little brown craft racing
in as if for a wager. At one point the fleet
splits up, and the greater portion enter an inlet
other than that at which we are standing.

Anxious to watch their incoming, we hurry
round the cliffs, past quiet bays. The black rocks
against the blue sea, allspice-coloured sand, and
overhanging autumn-tinted trees almost reaching
to the water's edge, would afford many a fascinating
subject for the painter of seascapes. In descending
a hill, the haven towards which the fishing-boats
are scudding is before us — a large bay with a break-
water. On the near side of it are massed rows
upon rows of fishing-boats, now arrayed in their
gossamer robes of blue. Everyone is busy. You
are reminded of a scene in a play — a comic opera
at the Gaiety. Boats are entering by the dozen
every moment, and arranging themselves in rows
in the little harbour, like a pack of orderly school-
children, shuffling and fidgeting for a moment in
their places before dropping anchor and remaining
stationary. Others are scudding rapidly over the
smooth blue sea, ruffling it up in white foam at
their bows. Scores of men in rich brown wallflower-
hued clothes and dark-blue berets are as busy as

10 BRITTANY

bees among the sails and cordage ; others are walk-
ing rapidly to and fro, with round brown baskets,
full of silv^er fish, slung over the arms. But before
even the sardines are unloaded the nets are taken
down, bundles of blue net and brown corks, and
promptly carried off home to be dried. This is the
sailors' first consideration, for on the fi-ail blue
nets depends prosperity or poverty. Such nets are
most expensive : only one set can be bought in a
man's lifetime, and even then they must be paid
for in instalments.

Above the quay, leaning over the stone parapet,
are scores of girls, come from their homes just as
they were, some with their work and some with
their goute (bread and chocolate or an apple).
They have come to watch the entrance of the
fishing fleet: comely, fresh -complexioned women,
in shawls and aprons of every colour — some blue,
some maroon, some checked — all with spotless white
caps. The wives are distinguished from the maids
by the material of which their caps are made : the
wives' are of book-muslin and the maids' of fillet
lace. Some have brought their knitting, and work
away busily, their hair stuck full of bright steel
knitting-needles. I was standing in what seemed
to be a "boulevard des jeunes filles." They were

MEDITATION

DOUARNENEZ 11

mostly quite young girls; and handsome creatures
they were too, all leaning over the parapet and
smiling down upon the men as they toiled up the
slope with their baskets full, and ran down again at
a jog-trot with the empties. The stalwart young
men of the village were too much preoccupied to
find time for tender or friendly glances : it was
only later, when the bustle had subsided some-
what, and the coming and going was not so active,
that they condescended to pay any attention to the
fair.

The matrons were mostly engaged in haggling
for cheap fish. The men, tired after their day's
work, generally gave way without much ado. It
was amusing to watch the triumph in which the
old ladies carried off their fish, washed and cleaned
them in the sea, threaded them on cords, and,
slinging them on their shoulders, set off for home.

It seemed as if the busy scene would never
end. Always fi-esh boats were arriving, and still the
liorizon was black with fishing craft. Reluctantly
we left the scene — a forest of masts against the
evening sky, a jumble of blues and browns, rich
wallflower shades and palest cornflower, brown
corks, and the white caps of the women.

Next morning the romantic and picturesque

2—2

12 BRITTANY

aspect of the town had disappeared. Gone were
the fishermen, and gone their dainty craft. The
only men remaining were loafers and good-for-
nothings, besides the tradesmen and inn-keepers.
Two by two tlie children were tramping through
the steep gray streets on their way to school —
small dirty-faced cherubs, under tangled mops of
fair hair (one sees the loveliest red-gold and yellow-
gold hair in Douarnenez), busily munching their
breakfasts of bread and apples, many of them just
able to toddle. ' Donne la main a ta soeur,
George,' I heard a shrill voice exclaim from a
doorway to two little creatures in blue - checked
pinafores wending their weary way schoolwards.
AVho would have known that one of them was a
boy ? They seemed exactly alike. Handsome
young girls in neat short skirts, pink worsted
stockings, and yellow sabots, were busy sweeping out
the gutters. Little children's dresses and pinafores
had taken the place of nets and seamen's oilskins,
now hanging from the windows to be dried. The
quay was silent and desolate ; the harbour empty
of boats, save for a few battered hulks. All the
colour and romance had gone out to sea with the
fishermen. Only the smell of the sardines had been
left behind.

MINDING THE BABIES

-"^iCc V.t; .."*v. '^sagttMsi^^

ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE

A COTTAGE IN ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE

CHAPTER 11

ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE

During our month's tour in Brittany we had not
met one English or American traveller ; but at
Rochefort-en-Terre there was said to be a colony
of artists. On arriving at the little railway-station,
we found that the only conveyance available was
a diligence which would not start until the next
train, an hour thence, had come in. There was
nothing for it, therefore, but to sit in the stuffy
little diligence or to pace up and down the broad
country road in the moonlight. There is some-
thing strangely weird and eerie about arriving at
a place, the very name of which is unfamiliar, by
moonlight.

After a long hour's wait, the diligence, with its
full complement of passengers, a party of young
girls returned from a day's shopping in a neigh-
bouring town, started. It was a long, cold drive,
and the air seemed to be growing clearer and
sharper as we ascended. At length Rochefort-en-

16 BRITTANY

Ten'e was reached, and, after paying the modest
sum of fifty centimes for the two of us, we were
set down at the door of the hotel. We were
greeted with great kindness and hospitahty by two
maiden ladies in the costume of the country, joint
proprietors of the hotel, who made us exceedingly
comfortable. To our surprise, we discovered that
the colony of painters had been reduced to one
lady artist ; but it was evident, from the pictures
on the panels of the saUe-a-manger, that many
artists had stayed in the hotel during the summer.

Rochefort by morning light was quite a surprise.
The hotel, with a few surrounding houses, was
evidently situated on a high hill ; the rest of the
village lay below, wreathed, for the time being, in
a white mist. It was a balmy autumn morning ;
the sunlight was clear and radiant ; and I was filled
with impatience to be out and at work. The
market-place was just outside our hotel, and the
streets were alive with people. A strange smell
pervaded the place — something between cider
apples and burning wood — and whenever I think
of Rochefort that smell comes back to me, bring-
ing with it vivid memories of the quaint little
town as I saw it tliat day.

There is nothing modern about Rochefort. The

ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE 17

very air is suggestive of antiquity. Few villages
in Brittany have retained their old simplicity of
character ; but Rochefort is one of them. Un-
touched and unspoilt by the march of modernity,
she has stood still while most of her neighbours
have been whirled into the vortex of civilization.
Rochefort, like the Sleeping Beauty's palace, has
lain as it was and unrepaired for years. INIoss has
sprung up between the cobble-stones of her streets ;
ferns and lichen grow on the broken-down walls;
Nature and men's handiwork have been allowed
their own sweet way — and a very sweet way they
have in Rochefort. To enter the village one must
descend a flight of stone steps between two high
walls, green and dark with ivy and small green
ferns growing in the niches. Very old walls they
are, with here and there ancient carved doorways
breaking the straight monotony. On one side is
a garden, and over the time-worn stone-work
tomato -coloured asters nod and wistaria throws
her thick festoons of green, for the flowering season
is past. Everything is dark and damp and moss-
grown, and very silent. An old woman, with a
terra-cotta pitcher full of water poised on her head,
is toiling up the steps, the shortest way to the
town, which, save for the singing of the birds in

18 BRITTANY

the old chateau garden, the bleating of lambs on
the hillside, and the chopping of a wood-cutter,
is absolutely silent. One descends into a valley
shut in by rugged blue-gray mountains, for all the
world like a little Alpine village, or, rather, a
Breton village in an Alpine setting. The moun-
tains in parts are rocky and rugged, purple in
aspect, and in parts overgrown with gray -green
pines. There are stretches of wooded land, of
golden-brown and russet trees, and great slopes
of grass, the greenest I have ever seen. It is quite
a little Swiss pastoral picture, such as one finds
in children's story-books. On the mountain-side a
woman, taking advantage of the sun, is busy drying
her day's washing, and a little girl is driving some
fat black-and-white cows into a field ; while a
sparkling river runs tumbling in white foam over
boulders and fallen trees at the base. But Roche-
fort is a typically Breton village. Nowhere in
Switzerland does one see such ancient walls, such
gnarled old apple-trees, laden and bowed down to
the earth with their weight of golden red fruit.
Nowhere in Switzerland, I am sure, do you see such
fine relics of architecture. Nearly every house in
the village has something noble or beautiful in its
construction. Renovation has not laid her dese-

AT ROCHFORT-EN-TERRE

ROCHEFORT-EN-TEIIRE 19

crating hands on Rochefort. Here you see a house
that was once a lordly dwelling ; for there are
remains of some fine sculpture round about the
windows, remnants of magnificent mouldings over
the door, a griffin's head jutting from the gray
walls. There you see a double flight of rounded
stone steps, with a balustrade leading up to a
massive oak door. On the ancient steps chickens
perch now, and over the doorway hang a bunch
of withered mistletoe and the words ' Debit de
Boisson.'

The village is full of surprises. Everywhere you
may go in that httle place you will see all about
you pictures such as would drive most artists wild
with joy. Everything in Rochefort seems to be
more or less overgrown. Even in this late October
you will see flowers and vines and all kinds of
greenery growing rampant everywhere. You will
see a white house almost covered with red ram-
bling roses and yellowing vines, oleanders and
cactus plants standing in tubs on either side of the
door. There is not a wall over which masses of
greenery do not pour, and not a window that
does not hold its pot of red and pink geraniums.
Two cats are licking their paws in two different
windows. The sun has come out from the mists

3—2

20 BRITTANY

which enveloped it, and shines in all its glory, hot
and strong on your back, as it would in August.
It is market day, and everyone is light-hearted and
happy. The men whistle gaily on their way ; the
women's tongues wag briskly over their purchases ;
even the birds, forgetful of the coming winter, are
bursting their throats with song. In the chateau
garden the birds sing loudest of all, and the flowers
bloom their best. It is a beautiful old place, the
chateau of Rochefort. Very little of the ruin is
left standing ; but the grounds occupy an immense
area, and are enclosed by great high walls. Where
the old kitchen once stood an American has built a
house out of the old bricks, using many of the orna-
mentations and stone gargoyles found about the
place. It is an ingeniously designed building ; yet
one cannot but feel that a modern house is some-
what incongruous amid such historic surround-
ings. The old avenue leading to the front door
still exists ; also there are some apple-trees and
ancient farm -buildings. The chateau has been
built in the most beautiful situation possible, high
above the town, on a kind of tableland, from which
one can look down to the valley and the en-
circling hills.

Set up in a prominent position in the village,

MID-DAY REST

ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE 21

where two roads meet, is a gaudy crucifix, very
large and newly painted. It is a realistic presenta-
tion of our Saviour on the cross, with the blood
flowing redly from His side, the piercing of every
thorn plainly demonstrated, and the drawn hues of
agony in His face and limbs very much accen-
tuated. Every market woman as she passes shifts
her basket to the other arm, that she may make
the sign of the cross and murmur her prayers ;
every man, woman, child, stops before the cross
to make obeisance, some kneeling down in the
dust for a few moments before passing on their
way.

Who is to say that the image of that patient,
suffering Saviour is not an influence for good in
the village ? Who is to say that the adoration,
no matter how fleeting, does not soften, does not
help, does not control, those humble peasant folk
who bow before Him ? Religion has an immense
hold over the peasants of Brittany. It is the one
thing of which they stand in dread. These images,
you say, are dolls ; but they are very realistic dolls.
They teach the people their Bible history in a
thorough, splendid way. They stand ever before
them as something tangible to cling to, to believe
in. And the images in the churches — do you mean

22 BRITTANY

to say that they have no influence for good on the
people ? St. Stanislaus, the monk, for example,
with cowl and shaven head — what an influence
such a statue must have on the hearts of children I
There is in his face a world of tender fatherly feel-
ing for the little child in the white robe and golden
girdle who is resting his head so wearily on the
saint's shoulder, clasping a branch of faded lilies in
his hand. Children look at this statue, and they
picture St. Stanislaus in their minds always thus :
they know what the saint looked like, what he did.
He is not only a misty, dim, uncertain figure in the
history of the Bible, but a tangible, living, vibrating
reality, taking active part in their daily lives. For
older children, boys especially, there is St. Antoine
to admire and imitate— St. Antoine the hermit,
with his staff* and his book, the man with the
strong, good face. Fran9oise d'Amboise, a pure,
sweet saint in the habit of a nun, her arms full of
lilies, appeals to the hearts and imaginations of all
young girls. I believe in the efficacy of these figures
and pictures. The peasants' brains are not of a
sufficiently fine calibre to believe in a vague Christ,
a vague Virgin, vague saints interpreted to them by
the priests. If it were not for the images, men and
women would not come to church, as they do at all

ROCHEFORT-EN-TERRE 23

hours of the day, bringing their market baskets
and their tools with them. They would not come
in this way, spontaneously, joyfully, two or three
times a day, to an empty church with only an
altar. Church-going would then become a bare
duty, forced and unreal, to be gradually dropped
and discontinued. These people are able to see the
sufferings of our Saviour on the cross, and every-
thing that He had to undergo for us ; also, there
is something infinitely comforting in the Divine
Figure, surrounded by myriads of candles and
white flowers, with hands outstretched, bidding all
who are weary and heavy-laden to come unto Him.
The peasants contribute their few sous' worth of
candles, and light them, and feel somehow or other
that they have indeed rid themselves of sins and
troubles.

The country round Rochefort is truly beautiful.
The village lies in a hollow ; but it is delightful to
take one of the mountain-paths, and go up the
rocky way into the pines and gorse and heather.
As one sits on the hillside, looking down upon the
village, it is absolutely still save for the cawing of
some birds. You are out of the world up here.
The quaint little gray hamlet lies far below.
Between it and you is the fertile valley, with green

U BRITTANY

fields and groves of bushy trees. The country is
quite cultivated for Brittany, where cabbage-fields
and pasture-lands are rare. The mountains en-
circling the valley are of gi'ay slate ; growing here
and there amongst the slate are yellow gorse and
purple heather.

It is a gray, dull day ; not a breath stirs the air,
which is heavy and ominous. Evening is drawmg
on as one walks down the mountain-path towards
home, and a haze is settling on the village ; the sun
has been feebly trying to shine all day through the
thick clouds that cover it. The green pines, with
their purple stems, are very beautiful against the
deeper purple of the mountains ; pretty, too,
the homesteads on the hills, with their fields of
cabbages and little plantations of flowers. There is
a sweet smell of gorse and pine-needles and decay-
ing bracken, and always one hears the caw of rooks.

In such a country as this, on such a day, amid
such sights and sounds, you feel glad to be alive.
You swing down the mountain-side quickly, and
the beauty of it all enters into your soul, filling
you with a nameless longing and yearning for you
know not what, as Nature in her grandest moods
always does. What rich colouring there is round
about every\\'here on this autumn afternoon I The

A COTTAGE HOME

ROCHEFORT-EN-TERllE 25

mountain-path leads, let us say, through a pine-
wood. The leaves are far above your head ; you
seem to be walking in a forest of stems — long,
slim, silver stems, purple in the shadows. On the
ground is a carpet of salmon and brown leaves,
with here and there a bracken-leaf which is abso-
lutely the colour of pure gold.

There is no sound in the forest but your own
footsteps and the rustle of the dry leaves as your
dress brushes them. You emerge from the pine-
forest on to a bare piece of mountain land, grayish
purple, with patches of black. Then you dive into
a chestnut-grove, where the leaves are green and
brown and gold, and the earth is a rich brown.
And so down the path into the village wrapped
in a blue haze. The women in their cottages
are bending busily over copper pots and pans
on great open fireplaces of blazing logs. Little
coloured bowls have been laid out on long
polished tables for the evening meal, and the bright
pewter plates have been brought down from the
dresser. Lulu has been sent out to bring home
bread for supper. ' Va, ma petite Lulu,' says
her mother, 'depeche toi.' And the small fat
bundle in the check pinafore toddles hastily down
the stone steps on chubby legs.

26 BRIITANY

On the stone settles outside almost evTry house
in the village families are sitting — the mothers and
withered old grandmothers knitting or peeling
potatoes, and the children munching apples and
hunches of bread-and-butter. An old woman is
washing her fresh green lettuce at the pump. As
we mount the hill leading to the hotel and look
back, night is fast descending on the village. The
mountains have taken on a deeper purple ; blue
smoke rises from every cottage ; the gray sky is
changing to a faint citron yellow ; the few slim
pine-trees on the hills stand out against it jet-black,
like sentinels.

VITRE

4—2

MEDI/EVAL HOUSES, VITRE

CHAPTEK III

VITRE

For the etcher, the painter, the archaeologist, and
the sculptor, Vitre is an ideal town. To the
archaeologist it is an ever-open page from the
Middle Ages, an almost complete relic of that
period, taking one back with a strange force and
realism three hundred years and more. Time has
dealt tenderly with Vitre. The slanting, irregular
houses, leaning one against the other, as if for
mutual support, stand as by a miracle.

Wandering through Vitre, one seems to be
visiting a wonderful and perfect museum, such as
must needs please even the exacting, the blase,
and the indifferent. You are met at every turn
by the works of the ancients in all their naive
purity and simplicity, many of the houses having
been built in the first half of the seventeenth
century.

One can have no conception of the energy of
these early builders, fighting heroically against

30 BRITTANY

difficulties such as we of the present day do not
experience. They OAercanie problems of balance
and expressed their o^^n imaginations. Common
masons with stone and brick and wood accom-
plished marvellous and audacious examples of
architecture. They sought symmetry as well as
the beautifying of their liomes, covering them
with ornamentations and sculpture in wood and
stone. Without architects, without plans or
designs, these men simply followed their own
initiative, and the result has been absolute
marvels of carpentry and stone -work, such as
have withstood the onslaught of time and held
their own.

When you first arrive at Vitre, at the
crowded, bustling station, surrounded by the most
modern of houses and hotels, and faced by the
newest of fountains, disappointment is acute.
If you were to leave Vitre next morning, never
having penetrated into the town, you would carry
away a very feeble and uninteresting impression ;
but, having entered the town, and discovered
those grand old streets — the Baudrarie, the
Poterie, and the Notre Dame, among many
others — poet, painter, sculptor, man of business
or of letters, whoever you may be, you cannot

VITRE 31

fail to be astonished, overwhelmed, and delighted.
A quiet old-world air pervades the streets ; no
clatter and rattle of horses' hoofs disturbs their
serenity ; no busy people, hurrying to and fro, fill
the pathways. Handcarts are the only vehicles,
and the inhabitants take life quietly. Often for
the space of a whole minute you will find yourself
quite alone in a street, save for a hen and chickens
that are picking up scraps from the gutter.

In these little old blackened streets, ever so
narrow, into whicli the sun rarely penetrates
except to touch the upper stories with golden
rays, there are houses of every conceivable shape —
there are houses of three stories, each story project-
ing over the other ; houses so old that paint and
plaster will stay on them no longer ; houses with
pointed roofs ; houses with square roofs thrust
forward into the street, spotted by yellow moss ;
houses the faqades of which are covered with scaly
gray tiles, glistening in the sun like a knight's
armour. These are placed in various patterns
according to the taste and fantasy of the archi-
tect ; sometimes they are cut round, sometimes
square, and sometimes they are placed like the
scales of a fish. There are houses, whose upper
stories, advancing into the middle of the street,

32 BRITTANY

are kept up by granite pillars, forming an arcade
underneath, and looking like hunchbacked men ;
there are the houses of the humble artisans and the
houses of the proud noblemen ; houses plain and
simple in architecture ; houses smothered with
carvings in wood and stone of angels and saints
and two-headed monsters — houses of every shape
and kind imaginable. In a certain zigzag, tortuous
street the buildings are one mass of angles and
sloping lines, one house leaning against another, —
noble ruins of the ages. The plaster is falling
from the walls ; the slates are slipping from the
roofs ; and the wood is becoming worm-eaten.

It is four o'clock on a warm autumn afternoon ;
the sun is shining on one side of this narrow street,
burnishing gray roofs to silver, resting lovingly on
the little balconies, with their j)endent washing and
red pots of geranium. The men are returning
from their work and the children from their schools;
the workaday hours are ended, and tlie houses teem
with life. A woman is standing in a square
sculptured doorway trying to teach her little
white-faced fluffy-haired baby to say ' JNIa ! ma !'
This he positively refuses to do ; but he gurgles
and chuckles at intervals, at which his mother
shakes him and calls him * petit gamin.'

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VITRE 33

All Bretons love the sun ; they are like httle
children in their simple joy of it. A workman
passing says to a girl leaning out of a low latticed
^Wndow :

' C'est bon le soleil V

'Mais oui : c'est pour cela que j'y suis,' she
answers.

One house has an outside staircase of chocolate-
coloured wood, spirally built, with carved balus-
trades. On one of the landings an old woman is
sitting. She has brought out a chair and placed it
in the sunniest corner. She is very old, and wears
the snowiest of white caps on her gray hair ; her
wTinkled pink hands, "viith their red worsted cuffs,
are working busily at her knitting ; and every
now and then she glances curiously through the
banisters into the street below, like a little bright
bird.

There are white houses striped with brown
crossbars, each Mdth its httle shallow balcony.
Above, the white plaster has nearly all fallen
away, revealing the beautiful old original primrose-
yellow.

Curiosity shops are abundant everywhere, dim
and rich in colour wdth the reds and deep tones of
old polished wood, the blue of china, and the

S4 BRIITANY

glistening yellow of brass. Aneient houses there
are, with scarcely any windows : the few that one
does see are heavily furnished with massive iron-
nailed shutters or grated with rusty red iron ; the
doorways are of heaviest oak, crowned with coats
of arms sculptured in stone. Large families of
dirty children now live in these lordly domains.

One longs in ^^itre, above all other places, to
paint, or, rather, to etch. Vitre is made for the
etcher ; endless and wondrous are the subjects for
his needle. Here, in a markedly time-worn street,
are a dozen or more pictures awaiting him — a door-
way aged and blackened alternately by the action
of the sun and by that of the rain, and carved in
figures and symbols sculptiu'cd in stone, through
which one catches glimpses of a courtyard wherein
two men are shoeing a horse ; then, again, there is
an obscure shop, so calm and tranquil that one
asks one's self if business can ever be carried on
there. As you peer into the darkness, packets of
candles, rope, and sugar are faintly discernible,
also dried fish and bladders of lard suspended from
the ceiling ; in a far corner is an old woman in a
white cap — all this in deepest shadow. Above, the
clear yellow autumn sunlight shines in a perfect
blaze upon tiie primrose-coloured walls, crossed

IN CHURCH

VITRE 85

with beams of blackest wood, making the slates
on the pointed roofs scintillate, and touching the
windows here and there with a golden light.

Side by side with this wonderful old house, the
glories of which it is impossible to describe in mere
words, a new one has been built — not in a modern
style, but striving to imitate the fine old structures
in this very ancient street. The contrast, did it
not grate on one's senses, would be laughable.
Stucco is pressed into the service to represent the
original old stone, and varnished deal takes the
place of oak beams with their purple bloom
gathered through the ages. The blocks of stone
round the doors and windows have been laboriously
hewn, now large, now small, and placed artistically
and carelessly zigzag, pointed with new black
cement. This terrible house is interesting if only
to illustrate what age can do to beautify and
modernity to destroy.

Madonnas, crucifixes, pictures of saints in glass
cases, and statuettes of the Mrgin, meet you at
every turn in Vitr^, for the inhabitants are pro-
verbially a religious people. A superstitious yet
guilty conscience would have a trying time in
\"itre. In entering a shop, St. Joseph peers do^vTi
upon you from a niche above the portal ; at every

5-2

36 BRITTANY

street corner, in every market, and in all kinds
of quaint and unexpected places, saints and angels
look out at you.

The beautiful old cathedral, Notre Dame de
Vitre, is one of the purest remaining productions
of the decadent Gothic art in Brittany, and one of
the finest. Several times the grand old edifice
has been enlarged and altered, and the changes
in art can be traced through different additions
as in the pages of a book. It is a comparatively
low building, the roof of which is covered by a
forest of points or spires, and at the apex of each
point is a stone cross. In fact, the characteristics
of this building are its points : the windows are
shaped in carved points, and so are the ornamenta-
tions on the projecting buttresses. The western
door, very finely carved and led up to by a flight of
rounded steps, is of the Renaissance period. In
colouring, the cathedral is gray, blackened here and
there, but not much stained by damp or lichen,
except the tower, which seems to be of an earlier
date. The stained-glass windows, seen from the
outside, are of a dim, rich colouring ; and on one of
the outside walls has been built an exterior stone
pulpit, ornamented with graceful points, approached
from tlie church by a slit in the wall. It was

PERE LOUIS

VITRE 37

constructed to combat the Calvinistic party, so
powerful in Vitr^ at one time. One can easily
imagine the seething crowd in the square below —
the sea of pale, passionate, upturned faces. It must
have presented much the same picture then as it
does now, this cathedral square in Vitr^ — save for
the people ; — for there are still standing, facing the
pulpit, and not a hundred paces from it, a row of
ancient houses that existed in those very riotous
times. Every line of those once stately domains
slants at a different angle now, albeit they were
originally built in a solid style — square-fronted and
with pointed roofs, the upper stories projecting
over the pavement, with arcades beneath. Some
are painted white, with gray woodwork ; others
yellow, with brown wood supports. Outside one
of the houses, once a butcher's shop, hangs a boar's
head, facing the stone pulpit. What scenes that
old animal must have witnessed in his time, gazing
so passively with those glassy brown eyes ! If only
it could speak 1

Convent-bred girls in a long line are filing into
church through the western door — meek-faced little
people in black pinafores and shiny black hats.
All wear their hair in pigtails, and above their
boots an inch or so of coloured woollen stockings is

38 BRITTANY

visible. Each carries a large Prayer-Book under
her arm. A reverend Mother, in snowy white
cap and flowing black veil, heads the procession,
and another brings up the rear.

The main door facing the square is flung wide
open ; and the contrast between the brilliant sunlit
square, with its noisy laughing children returning
from school, dogs barking, and handcarts rattling
over the cobble stones, and this dim, sombre in-
terior, bathed in richest gloom, is almost over-
whelming.

A stained-glass window at the opposite end
of the church, with the light at the back of it,
forms the only patch of positive colour, with its
brilliant reds and purples and blues. All else is
dim and rich and gloomy, save here and there
where the glint of brass, the gold of the picture-
frames, the white of the altar-cloth, or the ruby
of an ever-burning light, can be faintly discerned in
the obscurity. The deep, full notes of the organ
reach you as you stand at the cathedral steps, and
you detect the faint odour of incense. The figure
of a woman kneeling with clasped hands and
bent head is dimly discernible in the heavy gloom.
One glance into such an interior, after coming from
the glare and glamour of the outside world, cannot

VITRE 39

but bring peace and rest and a soothing influence
to even the most unquiet soul.

The chateau of Vitre is an even older building
than the cathedral. It has lived bravely through
the ages, suffering little from the march of time :
a noble edifice, huge and massive, with its high
towers, its chatelet, and its slate roofs. Just out of
the dark, narrow, cramped old streets, you are
astonished to emerge suddenly on a large open
space, and to be confronted by this massive
chateau, well preserved and looking almost new.
As a matter of fact, its foundation dates back as
far as the eleventh century, although four hundred
years ago it was almost entirely reconstructed.
Parts of the chateau are crumbling to decay; but
the principal mass, consisting of the towers and
chatelet, is marvellously preserved. It still keeps
a brave front, thougli the walls and many of the
castle keeps and fortresses are tottering to ruin.
Many a shock and many a siege has the old chateau
withstood ; but now its fighting days are over. The
frogs sing no longer in the moat through the beau-
tiful summer nights ; the sentinel's box is empty ;
and in tlie courtyards, instead of clanking swords
and spurred heels, the peaceful step of the tourist
alone resounds. The chateau has rendered a lonof

40 BRITTANY

and loyal service, and to-day as a reward enjoys
a glorious repose. To visit the castle, you pass
over a draw-bridge giving entrance to the chatelet,
and no sooner have you set foot on it than the
concierge emerges from a little room in the tower
dedicated to the service of the lodge-holder.

She is a very up-to-date chatelaine, trim and
neat, holding a great bunch of keys in her hand.
She takes you into a huge grass-grown courtyard
in the interior, whence you look up at the twin
towers, capped with pointed gray turrets, and see
them in all their immensity. The height and
strength and thickness of the walls are almost
terrifying. She shows you a huge nail-studded
door, behind which is a stone spiral staircase lead-
ing to an underground passage eight miles long.
This door conjures up to the imaginative mind all
kinds of romantic and adventurous stories. We
are taken into the Salle des Guardes, an octagonal
stone room on an immense scale, with bay windows,
the panes of which are of stained glass, and a
gigantic chimneypiece. One can well imagine the
revels that must have gone on round that solid oak
table among the waiting guards.

The chatelaine leads us up a steep spiral staircase
built of sohd granite, from which many rooms

IDLE HOURS

VITRE 41

branch, all built in very much the same style
— octagonal and lofty, with low doorways. One
must stoop to enter. On the stairway, at inter-
\'als of every five or six steps, there are windows
with deep embrasures, in which one can stand
and gain a commanding vnew of the whole country.
These, it is needless to say, were used in the olden
days for military purposes.

As the chatelaine moves on, ever above us, with
her clanking keys, one can take one's self back to
the Middle Ages, and imagine the warrior's castle
as it was then, when the chatelaine, young, sweet,
and pretty, wending her way about the dark and
gloomy castle, was the only humane and gentle
spirit there. Easier still is it to lose yourself in
the dim romantic past when you are shown into a
room which, though no fire burns on the hearth, is
still quite warm, redolent of tapestry and antiquity.
This room is now used as a kind of museum. It is
filled with fine examples of old china, sufficient to
drive a collector crazy, enamels, old armour, rubies,
ornaments, sculpture, medals, firearms, and instru-
ments of torture.

Sitting in a deep window-seat, surrounded by the
riches of ancient days, with the old-world folk peer-
ing out from the tapestried walls, one can easily

42 BRITTANY

close one's eyes and lose one's self for a moment in
the gray past, mystic and beautiful. It is delight-
ful to summon to your mind the poetical and
pathetic figure of (let us say) a knight imprisoned
in the tower on account of his prominent and all-
devouring love for some unapproachable fair one ;
or of that other who, pinning a knot of ribbon on
his coat, — his lady's colour — set out to fight and
conquer. But, alas ! no chronicle has been left of
the deeds of the castle prisoners. Any romantic
stories that one may conjure to one's mind in
the atmosphere of the chateau can be but the
airiest fabrics of a dream.

At the top of the spiral staircase is a rounded
gallery, with loopholes open to the day, through
which one can gain a magnificent, though some-
what dizzy, view over town and country. It was
from this that the archers shot their arrows upon
the enemy ; and very deadly their aim must have
been, for nothing could be more commanding as
regards position than the chateau of Vitrd. Also,
in the floor of the gallery, round the outer edge, are
large holes, down which the besieged threw great
blocks of stone, boiling tar, and projectiles of all
kinds, which must have fallen with tremendous
violence on the assailants.

VITRE 43

Wherever one goes in Vitre one sees the fine old
chateau, forming a magnificent background to every
picture, with its grand ivy-mantled towers and its
huge battlemented walls, belittling everything
round it. Unlike most French chateaus, more or
less showy and toy-like in design, the castle of
Vitre is built on solid rock, and lifted high above
the town in a noble, irresistible style, with walls of
immense thickness, and lofty beyond compare.
All that is grandest and most beautiful in Nature
seems to group itself round about the fine old
castle, as if Nature herself felt compelled to pay
tribute of her best to what was noblest in the
works of man. In the daytime grand and sweep-
ing white clouds on a sky of eggshell blue group
themselves about the great gray building. At
twilight, when the hoary old castle appears a
colossal purple mass, every tower and every turret
strongly outlined against the sunset sky. Nature
comes forward with her brilliant palette and
paints in a background of glorious prismatic hues :
great rolling orange and pink clouds on a sky of
blue — combination sufficient to send a colourist
wild with joy.

Every inch of the castle walls has been utilized
in one way or another to economize material.

6—2

44 BRITTANY

Houses have been built hanging on to and cluster-
ing about the walls, sometimes perched on the
top of them, like limpets on a rock. Often one
sees a fine battlemented wall, fifty or sixty feet
in height, made of great rough stone, brown and
golden and purple with age — a wall which, one
knows, must have withstood many a siege — with
modern iron balconies jutting out from it, balconies
of atrocious pattern, painted green or gray, with
gaudy Venetian bhnds. It is absolute desecration
to see leaning from these balconies, against such a
background, untidy, fat, dirty women, with black,
lank hair, and peasants knitting worsted socks,
where once fair damsels of ancient times waved
their adieux to departing knights. Then, again,
how terrible it is to see glaring advertisements of
Le Petit Journal, Benedictine Liqueur, Singer's
Sewing Machines, and Byrrh, plastered over a
fine old sculptured doorway !

There are in certain parts of the town remains
of the ancient moat. Sometimes it is a mere
brook, black as night, flowing with difficulty among
thick herbage which has grown up round it ; some-
times a prosperous, though always dirty, stream.
You come across it in unexpected places here
and there. In one part, just under the walls of

LA VIEILLE MERE PEROT

VITRE 45

the castle, where the water is very dirty indeed,
wash-houses have been erected ; there the women
kneel on flat stones by the banks. The houses
clustering round about the moat are damp and
evil-smelling ; their slates, green with mould, are
continually slipping off the roofs ; and the buildings
themselves slant at such an angle that their entry
into the water seems imminent.

At the base of the castle walls the streets mount
steeply. This is a very poor quarter indeed. The
houses are old, blackened, decayed, much-patched
and renovated. Yet the place is extremely pic-
turesque ; in fact, I know no part of Vitre that
is not.

At any moment, in any street, you can stop
and frame within your hands a picture which will
be almost sure to compose well — which in colouring
and drawing will be the delight of painters and
etchers. In these particular streets of which I
speak antiquity reigns supreme. Here no traffic
ever comes ; only slatternly women, with their
wretched dogs and cats of all breeds, fill the streets.
Many of the houses are half built out of solid
slate, and the steps leading to them are hewn from
the rock.

One sees no relics of bygone glory here. This

46 BRITTANY

must ever have been a poor quarter ; for the
windows are built low to the ground, and there are
homely stone settles outside each door. Pigs and
chickens walk in and out of the houses with as much
familiarity as the men and women. On every
shutter strings of drying fish are hung ; and every
window in every house, no matter how poor, has
its rows of pink and red geraniums and its pots of
hanging fern. Birds also are abundant ; in fact,
jfrom the first I dubbed this street *the street
of the birds,' for I never before saw so many
caged birds gathered together — canaries, bull-
finches, jackdaws, and birds of bright plumage.
By the sound one might fancy one's self for the
moment in an African jungle rather than in a
Breton village.

The streets of Vitre are remarkable for their
flowers. AA^herever you may look you will see pots
of flowers and trailing greenery, relieving with their
bright fresh colouring the time-worn houses of
blackened woodwork and sombre stone. Not only
do moss and creepers abound, but also there are
gardens everywhere, over the walls of which trail
vines and clematis, and on every window-ledge are
pots of geranium and convolvulus.

It is impossible in mere words to convey any

VITRE 47

real impression of the fine old town of Vitre : only
the etcher and the painter can adequately depict
it. The grand old town will soon be of the past.
Every day, every hour, its walls are decaying,
crumbling ; and before long Vitre will be no more
than a memory.

A VIEILLARD

1*5?

VANNES

CHAPTER IV

VANXES

A DEAR old-world, typically Breton town is Vannes.
We arrived at night, and gazed expectantly from
our window on the moonlit square. We plied with
questions the man who carried up our boxes. His
only answer was that we should see everything on
the morrow.

That was market-day, and the town was un-
usually busy. Steering for what we thought the
oldest part of Vannes, we took a turning which led
past ancient and crazy-looking houses. Very old
houses indeed they were, with projecting upper
stories, beams, and scaly roofs slanting at all
angles. At JVIorlaix some of the streets are ancient ;
but I have never seen such eccentric broken lines
as at A^annes. At one corner the houses leant
forward across the street, and literally rested one
on the top of the other. These were only the upper
stories ; below were up-to-date jewellers and
patisseries, with newly-painted signs in black and

5] 7—2

52 BRITTANY

gold. In tlie middle of these houses, cramped and
crowded and hustled by them, stood the cathedral.
Inside it was a dim, lofty edifice, with faintly
burning lamps. Hither the market-women come
with their baskets, stuffed to the full with fresh
green salad and apples, laying them down on the
floor that they may kneel on praying-chairs, cross
their arms, and raise their eyes to the high-altar,
pouring out trouble or joy to God. It was
delightful to see rough men with their clean
market-day blue linen blouses kneeling on the
stone floor, hats in hand and heads bowed,
repeating their morning prayers.

The people were heavily laden on this bright
autumn morning, either with baskets or with sacks
or dead fowls, all clattering through the cobbled
streets on their way to market. Following the
crowd, we emerged on a triangular-shaped market-
place, wherein a most dramatic-looking inahie or
town-hall figured prominently, a large building
with two flights of steps leading up to it, cul-
minating in a nail-studded door, with the arms
of IMorbihan inscribed above it.

One can well imagine such a market-place, let us
say, in the days of the Revolution : how some
orator would stand on these steps, with his

PLACE HENRI QUATRE, VANNES

-T:^'

VANNES 63

back to that door, haranguing the crowd, holding
them all enthralled by the force of rhetoric. Now
nothing so histrionic happens. There is merely
a buzzing throng of white -capped women,
haggling and bargaining as though their lives
depended on it, with eyes and hearts and minds for
nothing but their business. Here and there we
saw knots of blue-bloused men, with whips hung
over their shoulders and straws in their mouths,
more or less loafing and watching their womenfolk.
The square was filled with little wooden stalls,
where meat was sold — stringy-looking meat, and
slabs of purple-hued beef. How these peasant
women bargained ! I saw one old lady arguing for
quite a quarter of an hour over a piece of beef not
longer than your finger. Chestnuts were for sale in
large quantities, and housewives were buying their
stocks for the winter. The men of the family had
been pressed into the service to carry up sack after
sack of fine brown glossy nuts, which were especially
plentiful. No one seemed over-anxious to sell ; no
one cried his wares : it was the purchasers who
appeared to do most of the talking and haggling.

There were more Frenchwomen here than I
have seen in any other town ; but they were not
fine ladies by any means. They did not detract

54 BRITl^ANY

from the picturesqiieness of the scene. They went
round with their great baskets, getting them filled
with apples or chestnuts, or other things. JNIost of
the saleswomen were WTinkled old bodies ; but one
woman, selling chestnuts and baskets of pears, was
pretty and quite young, with a mauve apron and a
black cross-over shawl, and a mouth like iron. I
watched her with amusement. I had never seen so
young and comely a person so stern and business-
like. Not a single centime would she budge from
her stated price. She was pestered by women of
all kinds — old and young, peasants and modern
French ladies, all attracted by the beauty of her
pears and the glossiness of her chestnuts. Hers
were the finest wares in the market, and she was
fully conscious of it, pricing her pears and chest-
nuts a sou more a sieveful than anyone else. The
customers haggled with her, upbraided her, tried
every feminine tactic. They sneered at her chest-
nuts and railed at her pears ; they scoffed one
with the other. Eventually they gave up a
centime themselves ; but the hard mouth did not
relax, and the pretty head in the snow-white coif
was shaken vigorously. At this, with snorts or
disgust, her customers turned up their noses and
left. Ere long a smartly-dressed woman came

VANNES 55

along, and all unsuspectingly bought a sieveful of
chestnuts, emptying them into her basket. When
she came to pay for them, she discovered they were
a sou more than she had expected, and emptied
them promptly back into the market-woman's
sack. 1 began to be afraid that my pretty peasant
would have to dismount from her high horse or go
home penniless; but this was not the case. Several
women gathered round and began to talk among
themselves, nudging one another and pointing. At
last one capitulated, hoisted the white flag, and
bought a few pears. Instantly all the other women
laid down their bags and baskets and began to buy
her pears and chestnuts, ^^ery soon this stall be-
came the most popular in the market-place, and the
young woman and her assistant were kept busy the
whole day. The hard-mouthed girl had conquered !
' Sept sous la demi-douzaine ! Sept sous la demi-
douzaine !' cried a shrill- voiced vendor. It was a
man from Paris with a great boxful of shiny table-
spoons, wrapped in blue tissue-paper in bundles of
six, which he was offering for the ridiculous sum
of seven sous — that is, threepence halfpenny.
Naturally, with such bargains to offer, he was
selling rapidly. Directly he cried his ' Sept sous la
demi-douzaine — six pour sept sous !' he was hterally

56 BRITTNAY

surrounded. INIen and women came up one after
the other ; men's hands flew to their pockets under
their blouses, and women's to their capacious leather
purses. It was amusing to watch these people —
they were so guileless, so childlike, so much pleased
with their bargains. Still, it would break my
heart if these spoons doubled up and cracked or
proved worthless, for seven sous is a great deal of
money to the Breton peasants. I never saw mer-
chandise disappear so quickly. ' Solide, solide,
solide !' cried the merchant, until you would think
he must grow hoarse. ' This is the chance of a
lifetime,' he declared : ' a beautiful half-dozen like
this. C'est tout ce qu'il y a de plus joli et solide.
Voyez la beaute et la qualite de cette merchandise.
C'est une occasion que vous ne verrez pas tous les
jours.'

The people became more and more excited ; the
man was much pressed, and selling the spoons like
wildfire. Then, there were umbrellas over which
the women lost their heads— glossy umbrellas with
fanciful handles and flowers and birds round the
edge. First the merchant took up an umbrella
and twisted it round, then the spoons, and clattered
them invitingly, until people grew rash and bought
both umbrellas and spoons.

(

GOSSIPS

VANNES 57

There is nothing more amusing than to spend a
morning thus, wandering through the market-place,
watching the peasants transact their httle business,
which, though apparently trivial, is serious to them.
I never knew any people quite so thrifty as these
Bretons. You see them selling and buying, not
only old clothes, but also bits of old clothes — a
sleeve from a soldier's coat, a leg from a pair of
trousers ; and even then the stuff will be patched.
In this market-place you see stalls of odds and
ends, such as even the poorest of the poor in
England would not hesitate to throw on the
rubbish heap — old iron, leaking bottles, legs of
chairs and tables.

A wonderful sight is the market on a morning
such as this. The sun shines full on myriads of
white- capped women thronging through the streets,
and on lines of brown-faced vegetable vendors sit-
ting close to the ground among their broad open
baskets of carrots and apples and cabbages. There
are stalls of all kinds — butchers' stalls, forming
notes of colour with their vivid red meat ; haber-
dashery stalls, offering everything from a tooth-
brush or a boot-lace to the most excruciatingly
brilliant woollen socks ; stalls where clothes are
sold — such as children's checked pinafores and

58 BRriTANY

babies' caps fit for dolls. JNIost brilliant of all are
the material booths, where every kind of material
is sold — from calico to velvet. Tliey congregate
especially in a certain corner of the market-square,
and even the houses round about are draped with
lengths of material stretching from the windows
down to the ground — glorious sweeps of checks
and stripes and flowered patterns, and pink and
blue flaimelette. It is amusing to watch a Breton
woman buying a length of cloth. She will pull it,
and drag it, and smell it, and almost eat it ; she will
ask her husband's advice, and the advice of her
husband's relations, and the advice of her own
relations.

In this market I was much amused to watch two
men selling. I perceived what a great deal more
there is in the individuality of the man who sells
and in the manner of his selling than in the actual
quality of the merchandise. One man, a dull,
foolish fellow, with bales and bales of material,
never had occasion to unwrap one : he never sold
a thing. Another man, a born salesman, with the
same wares to offer, talked \'olubly in a high-
pitched voice. He called the people to him ; he
called them by name — whether it was the right
one or not did not matter : it was sufficient to

VANNES 59

arrest their attention. ' Depechons nous. Here,
Lucien ; here, Jeanne ; here, Babette ; here, my
pigeon. Depechons nous, depechons nous !' he cried.
' Que est ce qu'il y a ? personne en veux plus ?
Mais c est epatant. Je suis honteux de vous en dire
le prix. Flannel I the very thing for your head,
madam, — nothing softer, nothing finer. How many
yards ? — one, two, three ? There we are !' and, with
a flash of the scissors and a toss of the stuff, the
flannel is cut off, wrapped up and under the
woman's arm, before the gaping salesman opposite
has time to close his mouth.

The stall was arranged in a kind of semicircle,
and very soon this extraordinary person had
gathered a crowd of people, all eager to buy ; and
the way in which he appeared to attend to every-
one at once was simply marvellous.

' \\^hat for you, madam ?' he would ask, turning
to a young Breton woman. ' Pink flannel ? Here
you are — a superb article, the very thing for
nightgowns.' Then to a man : ' Trousering, my
lord ? Certainly. Touchez moi qa. Isn't that
marvellous ? Isn't that quality if you hke ? Ah !
but I am ashamed to tell you the price. You will
be indeed beautiful in this to-morrow.'

As business became slack for the moment, he

8—2

60 BRITTANY

would take up some cheap print and slap it on his
knee, crying :

' One sou — one sou the yard ! Figure yourself
dancing with an apron like that at one sou the
yard !'

And so the man would continue throughout the
day, shouting, screaming, always inventing new
jokes, selling his wares very quickly, and always
gathering more and more people round him. Once
he looked across at his unfortunate rival, who was
listening to his nonsense with a sneering expression.

' Ves : you may sneer, my friend ; but I am
selling, and you are not,' he retorted.

Endless — absolutely endless— are the peeps of
human nature one gains on a market-day such as
this in an old-world Breton town. I spent the
time wandering among the people, and not once
did 1 weary. At every turn I saw something to
marvel at, something to admire. We had chanced
on a particularly interesting day, wlien the whole
town was turned into a great market. W^herever
we went there was a market of some sort — a pig
market, or a horse market, or an old-clothes market ;
almost every street was lined with booths and
barrows.

Outside almost every drinking - house, or Cafe

A CATTLE-MARKET

VANNES 61

Breton, lay a fat pig sleeping contentedly on the
pavement, and tied to a string in the wall, built
there for that purpose. He would be waiting
while his master drank — for often men come in
to Vannes from miles away, and walk back with
their purchases. I saw an old woman who had
just bought a pig trying to take it home. She had
the most terrible time with that animal. First he
raced along the road with her at great speed, almost
pulling her arms out of the sockets, and making
the old lady run as doubtless she had never run
before ; then he walked at a sedate pace, persis-
tently between her feet, so that either she must
ride him straddle-legs or not get on at all ; lastly,
the pig wound himself and the string round and
round her until neither could move a step. A
drunken man reeled along, and, seeing the hopeless
muddle of the old lady and the pig, stopped in
front of them and tried to be of some assistance.
He took off his hat and scratched his head ; then
he poked the pig with his cane, and moved round
the woman and pig, giving advice ; finally, he flew
into a violent rage because he could not solve the
mystery, and the old lady waved him aside with an
impatient gesture. The air was filled with grunts
and groans and blood-curdling squeaks.

62 BRITTANY

Everyone seemed to possess a pig : either he or
she had just bought one or had one for sale. You
saw bundles of the great fat pink animals tied to
railings while the old women gossiped ; you saw
pigs, attached to carts, comfortably sleeping in the
mud ; you saw them being led along the streets
like dogs by neatly-dressed dames, holding them
by their tails, and giving them a twist every time
they were rebellious.

Vannes is the most beautiful old town imagin-
able. Everywhere one goes one sees fine old arch-
ways of gray stone, ancient and lofty — relics of a
bygone age — with the arms of Brittany below and
a saint with arms extended in blessing above.
When once you reach the outskirts of the town
you realize that at one time Vannes must have been
enclosed by walls : there are gateways remaining
still, and little bits of broken-down brickwork, old
and blackened, and half-overgrown with moss and
grasses. There is a moat running all round — it is
inky black and dank now — on the banks of which
a series of sloping slate sheds and washhouses have
been built, where the women wash their clothes,
kneeling on the square flat stones. How anything
could emerge clean and white from such pitch-
black water is a marvel. Seen from outside the

VANNES 63

gates, this town is very beautiful — the black water
of the moat, the huddled figures of the women,
with their white caps and snowy piles of linen, and
beyond that green grass and apple-trees and flowers,
and at the back the old grayish-pink walls, with
carved buttresses.

There is hardly a town in the whole of Brittany
so ancient as Vannes. These walls speak for them-
selves. They speak of the time when Vannes was
the capital of the rude Venetes who made great
Csesar hesitate, and retarded him in his conquest of
the Gauls. They speak of the twenty-one emigrants,
escaped from the Battle of Quiberon, who were shot
on the promenade of the Garenne, under the great
trees where the children play to-day. What mar-
vellous walls these are ! \\^ith what care they have
been built — so stout, so thick, so colossal ! It must
have taken men of great strength to build such walls
as these— men who resented all newcomers with a
bitter hatred, and built as if for their very lives,
determined to erect something which should be
impregnable. Still they stand, gray and battered,
with here and there remains of their former
grandeur in carved parapets, projecting turrets, and
massive sculptured doorways. At one time the
towTi must have been well within the walls ; but

64 BRITTANV

now it has encroached. The white and pink
and yellow- faced tall houses perch on the top
of, lean against and cluster round, the old gray-
walls.

It seems strange to live in a towTi where the
custom of couvre-feu is still observed by the
inhabitants — in a town where no sooner does the
clock strike nine than all lights are out, all shutters
closed, and all shops shut. This is the custom in
Vannes. It is characteristic of the people. The
\''anntais take a pride in being faithful to old
usages. They are a sturdy, grave, pensive race,
hiding indomitable energy and hearts of fire
under the calmest demeanour. The women are
fine creatures. I shall never forget seeing an old
woman chopping wood. All day long she worked
steadily in the open place, wielding an immensely
heavy hatchet, and chopping great branches of
trees into bundles of sticks. There she stood in
her red-and-black checked petticoat, her dress
tucked up, swinging her hatchet, and holding the
branches with her feet. She seemed an Amazon.

In Vannes, as in any part of Brittany, one always
knows when there is anything of importance hap-
pening, by the clatter of the sabots on the
cobble stones. On the afternoon when we were

BREAD STALLS

VANNES 65

there the noise was deafening. We heard it
through the closed windows while we were at
luncheon — big sabots, little sabots, men's nail-
studded sabots, women's light ones, little children's
persistent clump, clump, clump, all moving in the
same direction. It was the Foire des Oignons,
observed the waiter. I had imagined that there
had been a foire of everything conceivable that
day ; but onions scarcely entered into my calcula-
tions. I should not have thought them worthy of
a foire all to themselves. The waiter spoiled my
meal completely. I could no longer be interested
in the very attractive menu. Onions were my one
and only thought. I lived and had my being but
for onions. Mother and I sacrificed ourselves
immediately on the altar of onions. We rushed
from the room, much to the astonishment of
several rotund French officers, who were eating, as
usual, more than was good for them.

Everybody was concerned with onions. "^Ve drew
up in the rear of a large onion-seeking crowd. It
was interesting to watch the back \dews of these
peasants as they mounted the hill. There were all
kinds of backs — fat backs, thin backs, glossy black
backs, and faded gi-een ones ; backs of men with
floating ribbons and veh'eteen coats ; plump backs

66 BRITTANY

of girls with neat pointed shawls — some mauve,
some purple, some pink, some saffron.

At the top of the hill was the market-square — a
busy scene. The square was packed, and everyone
was talking volubly in the roughest Breton dialect.
Now and then a country cart painted blue, the
horse hung round the neck with shaggy black fur
and harnessed with the rough wooden gear so
general in Brittany, would push through the crowd
of busily-talking men and women. Everything
conceivable was for sale. At certain stalls there
were sweets of all colours, yet all tasting the same
and made of the worst sugar. I saw the same man
still selling his spoons and umbrellas ; but he was
fat and comfortable now. He had had his dejeuner,
and was not nearly so excited and amusing.
Fried sardines were sold with long rolls of bread ;
also sausages. They cook the sardines on iron
grills, and a mixed smell of sausages, sardines, and
chestnuts filled the air. Everyone was a little
excited and a little drunk. Long tables had been
brought out into the place where the men sat in
their blue blouses and black velvet hats, — their
whips over their shoulders, drinking cider and
wine out of cups, — discussing cows and horses.

There was a cattle market there that day. This

VANNES 67

was soon manifest, for men in charge of cows and
pigs pushed their way among the crowd. On feel-
ing a weight at your back now and then, you dis-
covered a cow or a pig leaning against you for
support. A great many more animals were
assembled on a large square — pigs and cows and
calves and horses. One could stay for days and
watch a cattle market : it is intensely interesting.
The way the people bargain is very strange. I saw
a man and a woman buying a cow from a young
Breton. The man opened its eyelids wide with his
finger and thumb ; he gazed in the gentle brown
eyes ; he stroked her soft gi'ay neck ; he felt her
ribs, and poked his fingers in her side ; he lifted
one foot after the other ; he punched and probed
her for quite a quarter of an hour ; and the cow
stood there patiently. The woman looked on with
a hard, knowing expression, applauding at every
poke, and talking volubly the while. She drew
into the discussion a friend passing by, and asked
her opinion constantly, yet never took it. All the
while the owner stood stroking his cow's back,
without uttering a word.

He was a handsome young man, as Bretons often
are — tall and slim, with a face like an antique
bronze, dark and classic ; — he wore a short black

9—2

68 BRITTANY

coat trimmed with shabby velvet, tightly-fitting
trousers, and a black hat with velvet streamers.
The stateliness of the youth struck me : he held
himself like an emperor. These Bretons look like
kings, with their fine brown classic features ; they
hold themselves so haughtily, they remind one of
figure-heads on old Roman coins. They seem men
born to command ; yet they command nothing,
and live like pigs with the cows and hogs. The
Breton peasant is full of dirt and dignity, living on
coarse food, and rarely changing his clothes ; yet
now^here will you meet with such fine bearing,
charm of manner, and nobility of feature as among
the peasants of Brittany.

On entering the poorest cottage, you are received
with old-w^orld courtesy by the man of the house,
who comes forward to meet you in his working
garments, with dirt thick upon his hands, but with
dignity and stateliness, begging that you will
honour his humble dweUing with your presence.
He sets the best he has in the house before you.
It may be only black bread and cider ; but he bids
you partake of it wdth a regal wave of his hand
which transforms the humble fare.

These peasants remind me very much of Sir
Henry Irving. Some of the finest types are

IN A BRETON KITCHEN

VANNES 69

curiously like him in feature : they have the same
magnificent profile and well-shaped head. It is
quite startling to come across Sir Henry in black
gaiters, broad-brimmed hat, and long hair stream-
ing in the wind, ploughing in the dark-brown fields,
or chasing a pig, or, dressed in gorgeous holiday
attire, perspiring manfully through a village gavotte.
Surely none but a Breton could chase a pig with-
out losing self-respect, or count the teeth in a cow's
mouth and look dignified at the same time. No
one else could dance up and do^vn in the broiling
sunshine for an hour and preserve a composed
demeanour. The Breton peasant is a person quite
apart from the rest of the world. One feels,
whether at a pig market or a wayside shrine, that
these people are dreamers living in a romantic
past. Unchanged and unpolished by the outside
world, they cHng to their own traditions ; every
stone in their beloved country is invested by them
with poetic and heroic associations. Brittany looks
as if it must have always been as it is now, even in
the days of the Phoenicians ; and it seems im-
possible to imagine the country inhabited by any
but medieval people.

There were many fine figures of men in this
cattle market, all busy at the game of buying

70 BRITTANY

and selling. A Frenchman and his wife were
strolling round the square, intent on buying a
pony. The man evidently knew nothing about
horses — very few Frenchmen do ; — and it was
ridiculous to watch the way in which he felt the
animal's legs and stroked its mane, with a wise
expression, while his wife looked on admiringly.
Bretons take a long time over their bargains :
sometimes they will spend a whole day arguing
over two sous, and then end by not buying the
pig or the cow, whatever it is, at all. The horses
looked tired and bored with the endless bargains,
as they leant their heads against one another. Now
and then one was taken out and trotted up and
down the square ; then two men clasped hands
once, and went off to a cafe to drink. If they
clasp hands a third time the bargain will be closed.
Market-day in Vannes is an excuse for frivolity.
We came upon a great crowd round two men
under a red umbrella, telling fortunes. One man's
eyes were blindfolded. He was the medium. The
people were listening to his words with guileless
attention and seriousness. Then a man and a
woman, both drunk, were singing songs about the
Japanese and Russian AVar, dragging in ' France '
and ' la gloire,' and selling the words, forcing young

VANNES 71

Frenchmen and soldiers to buy sheets of nonsense
for which they had no use. There were stalls of
imitation flowers — roses and poppies and chrysan-
themums of most impossible colours — gazed at
with covetous eyes by the more well-to-do house-
wives.

Hats were sold in great numbers at the Foire des
Oignons. It seemed to be fashionable to buy a
black felt hat on that day. The fair is held only
once a year, and farmers and their families flock
to it from miles round. It is the custom, when a
good bargain is made, to buy new hats for the
entire family. Probably there will be no oppor-
tunity of seeing a shop again during the rest of the
year. The trade in hats is very lively. AVomen
from Auray, in three-cornered shawls and wide
white-winged caps, sit all day long sewing broad
bands of velvet ribbon on black beaver hats,
stretching it round the crown and leaving it to
fall in two long streamers at the back. They
sew quickly, for they have more work than they
can possibly accomplish during the day. It is
amusing to watch the customers. I sat on the
stone balustrade which runs round the open
square of the Hotel de Ville, whither all the
townswomen come as to a circus, bringing their

72 BRITTANY

families, and eating their meals in the open air,
that they may watch the strangers coming and
going about their business, either on foot or in
carts. It was as good as a play. A young
man, accompanied by another man, an old lady,
and three young girls, had come shyly up to the
stall. It was obvious that he was coming quite
against his will and at the instigation of his com-
panions. He hummed and hawed, fidgeted, blushed,
and looked as wretched and awkward as a young
man could. One hat after another was tried on
his head ; but none of them would fit. He was
the object of all eyes. The townswomen hooted at
liim, and his own friends laughed. He could stand
it no longer. He dashed down his money, picked
up the hat nearest to him, and went off in a rage.
I often thought of that young man afterwards — of
his chagrin during the rest of the year, when
every Sunday and high day and holiday he would
have to wear that ill-fitting hat as a penalty for
liis bad temper. These great strapping Breton
men are very childish, and dislike above all things
to be made to appear foolish. Towards evening,
when three-quarters drunk, they are easily gulled
and cheated by the gentle-faced needle-women.
A\^ithout their own womenfolk they are com-

A RAINY DAY AT THE FAIR

VANNES 73

pletely at sea, and are made to buy whatever is
offered. They look so fooHsh, pawing one another
and trying on hats at rakish angles. It is ridicu-
lous to see an intoxicated man trying to look at
his own reflection in a hand-glass. He follows it
round and round, looking very serious ; holds it now
up and now down ; and eventually buys something
he does not want, paying for it out of a great purse
which he solemnly draws from under his blouse.

I saw a man and a child come to buy a hat.
The boy was the very image of his father — black
hat, blue blouse, tight trousers and all — only that
the hat was very shabby and brown and old, and
had evidently seen many a ducking in the river and
held many a load of nuts and cherries. His father
was in the act of buying him a new one. The
little pale lad smiled and looked faintly interested
as hat after hat was tried on his head ; but he was
not overjoyed, for he knew quite well that, once
home and in his mother's careful hands, that hat
would be seen only on rare occasions.

Another boy who came with his father to buy
a hat quite won my heart. He was a straight-
limbed, fair-haired, thoroughly English-looking boy.
A black felt hat was not for him — only a red tam-
o'-shanter; — and he stood beaming with pride as

74 BRITTANY

cap after cap was slapped on his head and as
qui ckly "whisked off again.

Women came to purchase bonnets for their
babies ; but, alas ! instead of buying the tight-lace
caps threaded with pink and blue ribbons charac-
teristic of the country, they bought hard, round,
blue-and-white sailor affairs, with mangy-looking
ostrich feathers in them — atrocities enough to
make the most beautiful child appear hideous.

The sun was fading fiist. Horses and cows and
pigs, drunken men and empty cider barrels, women
with heavy baskets and dragging tired children,
their pockets full of hot chestnuts — all were starting
on tlieir long walk home. When the moon rose,
the square was empty.

QUIMPER

10—2

IN THE PORCH OF THE CATHEDRAL,
QUIMPER

CHAPTER V

QUIMPER

* Cetait a la campagne
Pres d'un certain canton de la basse Bietagne
Appele Quimper Corentin.
On salt assez que le Destin
Adresse la les gens quand il veut qu'on enrage.
Dieu nous preserve du voyage.''

So says La Fontaine. The capital of Cornouailles
is a strange mixture of the old world and the new.
There the ancient spirit and the modern meet.
The Odet runs through the town. On one side is
a mass of rock 70 metres high, covered by a
forest so dark and dense and silent that in it one
might fancy one's self miles away from any town.
As one wanders among the chestnuts, pines,
poplars, and other trees, a sadness falls, as if from
the quiet foliage in the dim obscurity. On the
other side of the narrow river is a multitude of
roofs, encircled by high walls and dominated by
the two lofty spires of the cathedral. Gray and

78 BRITTANY

fiill of shadows is the quiet little town, with its
jumble of slanting roofs and its broken lines.

Quimper seems to have changed but little within
the last six years. We arrived as the sun was
setting. A warm light gilded the most ordinary-
objects, transforming them into things of beauty.
We flashed by in the hotel omnibus, past a river
resembling a canal, the Odet. The river was
spanned by innumerable iron-railed bridges. The
sky was of a fresh eggshell blue, with clouds of vivid
orange vermilion paling in the distance to rose-
pink, and shedding pink and golden reflections on
the clear gray water, while a red-sailed fishing-
boat floated gently at anchor. A wonderful
golden light bathed the town. You felt that
you could not take it all in at once, tliis glorious
colouring — that you must rush from place to place
before the light faded, and see the whole of the
fine old town under these exceptional circum-
stances, which would most probably never occur
again. You wanted to see the water, with its
golden reflections, and the warm light shining on
the lichen-covered walls, on the gardens sloping
down to the river, on the wrought-iron gateways
and low walls over which ivy and convolvulus
creep, on the red-rusted bridges. You wanted

QUIMPER 79

to see the cathedral — a purple-gray mass, with the
sun gildmg one- half of the tower to a brilliant
vermilion, and leaving the other half grayer and
a deeper purple than ever. You wanted to see
the whole place at once, for very soon the light
fades into the gray and purple of niglit.

My first thought on waking next morning in the
' city of fables and gables,' as Quimper is called,
was to see my old convent — the dear old convent
where as a child I spent such a happy year. Only
twelve more months, and the nuns will be ousted
from their home — those dear women whom, as the
hotel proprietress said with tears in her eyes,
'fassent que du bien.' How bitterly that cruel
Act rankles, and ever will rankle, in the hearts of
the Breton people I

' On dit que la France est un pays libre,' said my
hostess ; ' c'est une drole de hberte !'

The inhabitants of Quimper were more bitter,
more rebellious, than those of any other town,
for they greeted the officers with stones and
ffibes. And no wonder. The nuns had ever
been good and generous and helpful to the
people of Quimper. I remember well in the old
days what a large amount of food and clothing
went forth into the town from those hospitable

80 BRFITANV

doors, for the Retraite du Sacr^ Coeur was a rich
Order.

It was with a beating heart and eager anticipa-
tion that I knocked at the convent door that
morning, feehng hke a Httle child come home
after the hoHdays. 1 heard the sound of bolts
slipped back, and two bright e5'^es peeped through
the grille before the door was opened by a Sister in
the white habit of the Order. I knew her face in
an instant, yet could not place it. Directly she
spoke I remembered it was the Sister who changed
our shoes and stockings whenever we returned
from a walk.

I asked for the Mother Superior. She had gone
to England. I asked for one of the English nuns.
She also had gone. Names that had faded out of
my mind returned in the atmosphere of the con-
vent. Yes : three of the nuns I had named were
still at the convent. AA^hat was my name? the
Sister asked. AVho was I ?

I gave my name, and instantly her face lit up.

' Why, it is Mademoiselle Dorothe !' she ex-
claimed, raising her hands above her head in
astonishment. ' Entr^z, mademoiselle et madame,
entr^z !'

Through all these years, among all the girls who

THE VEGETABLE MARKET, QUIMPER

QtriMPEH 81

must have passed through the convent, she remem-
bered me and bade me welcome. In the quiet
convent so httle happens that every incident is
remembered and magnified and thought over.

We were taken upstairs and shown into a bare
room with straight-backed chairs — a room which
in my childish imagination had been a charmed
and magic place, for it was here that I came always
to see my mother on visiting days. We had not
long to wait before, with a rustle and clinking of
her cross and rosary, INIere B. appeared, a sweet
woman in the black dress and pointed white coif
that I knew so well. She had always been beau-
tiful in my eyes, and she was so still, with the
loveliness of a pure and saintly life shining througli
her large brown eyes. Her cheeks were as soft and
pink as ever, and her hands, which I used to watch
in admiration by the hour, were stretched out with
joy to greet me.

' O la petite Dorothe !' she cried, ' quel bonheur
de vous revoir I Est-ce vraiment la petite Dorothe V

As I sat watching her while she talked to my
mother, all the old thoughts and feelings came
back to me with a rush. I was in some awe of
her : I could not treat her as if she were an ordinary
person. All the old respectful tricks and turns of

82 BRITTANY

speech came back to me, though I imagined I had
forgotten them. My mother was teUing JNIere B. of
how busy I had been since I had left the convent —
of the books I had written and all about them ; —
but I felt as small and insignificant as the child
of ten, and could only answer in monosyllables —
* Oui, ma mere,' or ' Non, ma mere.'

At our request, we were shown over the convent.
JNIany memories it brought back — some pleasant,
some painful ; for a child's life never runs on one
smooth level — it is ever a series of ups and downs.
We were taken into the refectory. There was my
place at the corner of the table, where at the first
meal I sat and cried because, when asked if I would
like a tartine instead of pudding, I was given a
piece of bread - and - butter. Naturally, I had
thought that tartine meant a tart. And there
was the very same Sister laying the table, the Sister
who used to look sharply at my plate to see that 1
ate all my fat and pieces of gristle. She remem-
bered me perfectly. JNIany were the tussles, poor
woman, she had had with me.

JNIere B. showed us the chapel, where we used to
assemble at half-past six every morning, cold and
half-asleep, to say oiu' prayers before going into the
big church. ISlany were the beautiful addresses

QUIMPER 83

the Mother Superior had read to us ; many were
the vows I had made to be really very good ; many
were the resolves I had formed to be gentle and
forbearing during the day — vows and resolves only
to be broken soon.

We wandered through the garden between the
beds of thyme and mint and late roses, and INIere B.
spoke with tears in her eyes of the time when
they would have to leave their happy convent home
and migrate to some more hospitable land. ' It is
not for ourselves that we grieve,' she said : ' it is for
our poor country— for the people who will be left
without religion. Personally, we are as happy in
one country as in another.'

I picked a sprig of sweet-smelling thyme as I
passed, and laid it tenderly between the pages of
my pocket-book. If the garden were to be dese-
crated and used by strangers, I must have some-
thing to remember it by.

What memories the dear old convent garden
brouglit back to me ! There was the gravelled
square where we children skipped and played and
sang Breton chansons all in a ring. There was the
avenue of scanty poplars — not so scanty now — down
which I often paced in rebellious mood, gazing at
the walls rising high above me, longing to gain

11—2

84 BRITTANY

the farther side and be in the world. Outside
the convent gates was always called ' the world.'
There was the little rocky shrine of the Virgin — a
sweet-faced woman in a robe of blue and gold,
nursing a Baby with an aureole about His head.
Many a time I had thrown myself on the bench in
front of that shrine in a fit of temper, and had been
slowly calmed and soothed by that gentle presence,
coming away a better child, with what my mother
always called ' the little black monkey ' gone from
my back.

Very soon the convent atmosphere wraps itself
about you and lulls you to rest. You feel its
influence directly you enter the building. You are
seized by a vague longing to stay here, just where
you are, and leave the world, with its ceaseless
stri\'ings and turmoils and unrest, behind you. Yet
how soon the worldly element in you would come
to the fore, teasing you, tormenting you back into
the toils once more ! It was with a feeling of
sorrow and a sensation that something was being
wrenched from me that I bade good-bye to sweet
Mere 13. at the garden gate, with many embraces
and parting injunctions not to forget the convent
and my old friends.

^Vhere^■er one goes in Quimper one sees the

OUTSIDE THE CATHEDRAL, QUIMPERLE

QUIMPER 86

stately cathedral, that wondrous building which,
with its two excellent pyramids and gigantic portal,
is said to be the most beautiful in all Brittany, It
would take one days and days to realize its beauty.
The doorway itself is as rich in detail as a volume
of history. There are lines of sculptured angels
ioining hands over the porch, Breton coats of arms,
and the device of Jean X. — ' Malo au riche due'
There are two windows above the doorway, crowned
by a gallery, with an equestrian statue of the King
of Grallon. According to tradition the cathedral
must have been built on the site of the royal palace.

There are many legends about the church of
St. Corentin. One is that of a man who, going on
a pilgi'image, left his money with a neighbour for
safety. On returning, the neighbour declared that
he had never had the money, and proposed to swear
to the same before the crucifix of St. Corentin.
They met there, and the man swore. Instantly
three drops of blood fell from the crucifix to the
altar, which, the legend runs, are preserved to this
day.

It is also said that there is in the fountain of
Quimper a miraculous fish, which, in spite of the
fact that St. Corentin cuts off half of it every day
for his dinner, remains whole.

86 BRin^ANY

A quaint ceremony is held at the cathedral on
the Feast of St. Cecile. At two o'clock the clergy-
man, accompanied by musicians and choir-boys,
mounts a platform between the great towers, and a
joyous hymn is sung there, on the nearest point to
the sky in all Quimper. It is a strange sight.
Scores of beggars gather round the porch of the
cathedral — the halt, the lame, the blind, and the
diseased — all with outstretched hats and cups.

ST. BRIEUC

BY THE SIDE OF A FARM

CHAPTER VI

ST. BRIEUC

St. Brieuc, although it has lost character some-
what during the last half-century, is still typically
Breton. Its streets are narrow and cobbled, and
many of its houses date from the JMiddle Ages.
It was market-day when we arrived, and crowds
of women, almost all of whom wore different caps
— some of lace with wide wings, others goffered
with long strings — were hurrying, baskets over
their arms, in the direction of the market-place.
Suddenly, while walking in these narrow, tortuous
streets of St. Brieuc, I saw stretched before me,
or rather below, many feet below, a green and
fertile valley. It resembled a picturesque scene
magically picked out of Switzerland and placed
in a Breton setting. Through the valley ran a
small glistening stream, a mere ribbon of water,
threading its way among rocks and boulders and
vi\'id stretches of gi-een grass. On either side were
steep liills covered with verdure, gardens, and plots

89 12

90 BRITTANY

of vegetables. On the heights a railway was being
cut into the solid rock — a gigantic engineering
work, rather spoiling the aspect of this wooded
valley full of flowers and perfumes and the sun.

We were told that there was nothing further
to be seen in St. Brieuc, but that we must go to
Binic, which is described in a certain guide-book
as 'a very picturesque little fishing village.' This
sounded inviting, and, although w^e had not much
time to spare, we set off in a diligence with about
eighteen windows, each of which rattled as we
sped along at a terrific pace over the cobbles of
St. Brieuc. On we v/ent, faster and faster, rattling —
out into the country, past the valley again, the
beautiful valley, and many other valleys like it.
Craggy purple mountains half-covered with green
flew by us ; and here and there was an orchard
with gnarled and spreading apple-trees weighted
with heavy burdens of red and golden fruit — the
very soil was carpeted with red and gold. AVhat a
fertile country it is ! Here, where a river flows
between two mountains, how vividly green the
grass ! Peasant women by its banks are washing
linen on the flat stones, and hanging it, all white
and blue and daintily fresh, on yellow gorse bushes
and dark blackberry thorns.

ST. BRIEUC 91

I have never seen blackberries such as those on
the road to Binic. Tall and thick grew the bushes,
absolutely black with berries, so large that they
resembled bunches of grapes. Not a single Breton
in all the length and breadth of Brittany will pick
this ripe and delicious fruit — not a schoolboy, not
a starving beggar on the wayside — for does not the
bush bear the accursed thorns which pierced the
Saviour's forehead ? It is only when English and
American children invade Brittany that the black-
berries are harvested.

A diligence causes excitement in a small Breton
town. It carries the mails between the villages.
AVhenever the inhabitants hear the horn, out they
rush from their homes with letters and parcels to
be given into the hands of the courier. The
courier's duties, by the way, are many. Not only
are the mails given into his safe keeping : he is
entrusted with commissions, errands, and messages
of all kinds. A housewife will ask him to buy her
a bar of soap ; a girl will entrust him with the
matching of a ribbon ; a hotel-keeper will order
through him a cask of beer ; and so on. The
courier is busy throughout the day executing his
various commissions, now in one shop, now in
another ; and on the return journey his cart, hung

12—2

92 BRITTANY

all over with bulky packages and small, — here a
chair, there a broom, here a tin of biscuits —
resembles a Christmas-tree. The courier's memory
must needs be good and his hand steady, for it is
the custom to give him at each house as much
as he hkes to drink. His passengers are kept
for hours shivering in the cold, becoming late
for their appointments and missing their trains ;
but the courier cares not. He drinks v^'herever he
stops, and at each fresh start becomes more brilhant
in his driving.

At one of the villages, during the tedious wait
while the driver was imbibing, I was much
interested in watching a man, a little child, and
a dog. The man was a loafer, but neatly and
even smartly dressed, wearing a white peaked
yachting cap. The child was small and sickly,
with long brown hair curling round a deathly-white
and rather dirty face, weak blue eyes with red
rims, and an ominously scarlet mouth. Long
blue-stockinged legs came from beneath a black
pinafore, so thin and small that it seemed im-
possible that they could bear the weight of those
heavy black wooden sabots. I thought that the
child was a girl until the pinafore was raised,
reveahng tiny blue knickers and a woollen jersey.

ON THE ROAD TO BANNALEC

'J^ - -'■ ~ ^^^^JJ

/ .^■. ^r^M'

'^'

'fe^

ST. BRIEUC 93

The boy seemed devoted to his fether, and would
hold his hand unnoticed for a long while,
gazing into the unresponsive eyes. Now and
then he would jump up feverishly and excitedly,
pulling his father's coat to attract attention, and
prattling all the while. The man took not the
slightest notice of the child. He was glancing
sharply about him. By-and-by he bent down
towards his son, and I heard him whisper,
' AUez a ses messieurs la.' Without a word the
boy trotted off towards the men, his hands in his
pockets, and began talking to them, the father
watching attentively. He returned, but was im-
mediately sent off again with a frown and a push.
Then he came back with several sous, clasped
in his fist, which he held up proudly to his
father. Over and over again he was sent off, and
every time he came back with a few sous. Had
the child appealed to me I could not have resisted
him. There was something about the pathetic
pale face that tugged at the heart-strings. One
felt that the boy was not long for this world. His
father was absolutely callous. He did not reward
the lad by word or smile, although the child pulled
at his coat and clamoured for attention. At last
the boy gave up in despair, and, sitting down on

94 BRITTANY

the pavement, drew the old black poodle towards
him, hiding his face in the tangled wool, while the
animal's eyes, brown and sad, seemed to say that
he at least understood.

At length we arrived in Binic, cold, -windy,
composed of a few slate-gray, solid houses, a stone
pier, and some large sailing vessels, with nothing
picturesque about them. The courier's cart set us
down, and went rattling on its way. We were in
a bleak, unsympathetic place. 1 felt an impulse to
run after the diligence and beg the driver to take
us away. This was ' the picturesque little fishing
village ' ! We dived into the most respectable-
looking debit de boissons we could find, and
asked for tea. An old lady sitting before the
fire dropped her knitting, and her spectacles fiew
off. The sudden appearance of strangers in Binic,
combined with the request for tea, of all beverages,
seemed trying to her nervous system. It was quite
five minutes before she was in a fit condition to ask
us what we really required. With much trepida-
tion, she made our tea, holding it almost at arm's
length, as if it were poisonous. The tea itself she
had discovered on the top of a shelf in a fancy box
covered with dust and cobwebs ; she had measured
it out very carefully. When poured into our cups

DEBIT DE BOISSONS

ST. BRIEUC 95

the fluid was of a pale canary colour, and was
flavourless. We lengthened out the meal until
the carrier's cart arrived, with a full complement
of passengers. It had begun to rain and hail, and
the driver cheerfully assured us his was the last
diligence that day. The proprietress of the debit
had begun to rub her hands with glee at the
thought of having us as customers ; but I was
determined that, even if I had to sit on the top
of the cart, we should not stay in the terrible
place an hour longer. To the surprise of the
courier, and the disgust of the passengers, whose
view we completely blocked, we climbed to the
driver's seat and sat there. The driver, a good
natured man, with consideration for his purse,
shrugged his shoulders at the proprietress, and
we started on our way. I have never heard such
language as that w^hich issued from the back of
the cart. Many and terrible were the epithets
hurled at the heads of ' ses afFreuses Anglaises.'

CHURCH OF ST. MODY

PATMPOL

CHAPTER VII

PAIMPOI.

Whekever one travels one cannot but be impressed
by the friendliness and sympathy of the people.
On the day we were starting for Paimpol we found,
on arriving at the station, that we had an hour to
wait for our train. We happened to be feeling
rather depressed that day, and at this intimation
I was on the verge of tears. The porter who took
our tickets cheered us up to the best of his ability.
He flung open the door of the salle d'attente as if it
had been a lordly reception-room, flourished round
with his duster over mantelpiece and table and
straight-backed chairs, and motioned us to be seated.
' Voila tout ce qu'il y a de plus joli et confort-
able,' he said, with a smile. Percei\ ing that we
were not impressed, he drew aside the curtains and
pointed with a dirty forefinger. ' Yo'iVa un joli
petit jardin,' he exclaimed triumphantly. There,
he added, we might sit if we chose. Also, he
said there was a buffet close at hand. As this did

99 13—2

100 BRITTANY

not produce enthusiasm, he observed that there
was a mirror in the room, that he himself would
call us in time to catch our train, and that we were
altogether to consider oursehes chez nous. Then
he bowed himself out of the room.

The scenery along the railway from Guingamp
to Paimpol was beautiful. I hung my head out of
the window the whole way, so anxious was I not to
miss a single minute of that glorious colouring
There were hills of craggy rocks, blue and purple,
with pines of brilliant fresh green growing thickly
up their sides. On the summit, standing dark
against the sky, were older pines of a deeper green.
Between the clumps of pines grew masses of
mustard-yellow gorse and purple heather, in parts
faded to a rich pinky-brown. Now and then there
were clefts in the hills, or valleys, where the colour-
ing was richer and deeper still, and bracken grew
in abundance, pinky-brown and russet.

Paimpol itself is a fishing village, much fre-
quented by artists, attracted by the fishing-boats
with their vermilion sails, who never tire of depict-
ing the gray stone quay, with its jumble of masts
and riggings. In the salle a manger of the little
hotel where we had luncheon the walls were
hterally panelled with pictures of fishing-boats

REFLECTIONS

»*!»f*>t-

f f*

PAIMPOL 101

mocred to the quay. Every man sitting at that
long table was an artist. This was a pleasant
change fi'om the commercial travellers who hitherto
had fallen to our lot at meal- times. There was no
Englishman among the artists.

The Englisli at this time of the year in Brittany
are few, though they swarm in every town and village
during summer. These were Frenchmen — impres-
sionists of the new school. It was well to know
this. Otherwise one might have taken them for wild
men of the woods. Such ruffianly-looking people
I had never seen before. Some of them wore
corduroy suits, shabby and paint-besmeared, with
slo^'enly top-boots and large felt hats set at the
back of their heads. Others affected dandyism, and
parted their hair at the back, combing it towards
their ears, in the latest Latin Quarter fashion.
Their neckties were of the flaming tones of sunset,
very large and spreading ; their trousers excessively
baggy. The entrance of my mother and myself
caused some confusion among them, for women
are very rare in Paimpol at this season. Hats flew
off" and neckties were straiglitened, while each one
did his best to attend to our wants. Frenchmen are
nothing if not polite. The young man sitting next
to me suffered from shyness, and blushed every

102 BRITTANY

time he spoke. On one occasion, airing his
EngHsh, he said, ' Vill you pass ze vutter ?' I
passed liim the butter ; but he had meant water.
The poor youth rivalled the peony as he descended
to French and ex]>lained his mistake.

The people of Paimpol are supposed to be much
addicted to smuggling. INIy mother and I once
imagined that we had detected a flagrant act. One
afternoon, walking on a narrow path above the sea,
we saw three boys crouching behind a rock. They
were talking very earnestly, and pointing, apparently
making signals, to a little red-sailed boat. The boat
changed her course, and steered straight for a small
cove beneath our feet. We held our breath, expect-
ing to witness the hiding of the loot. Suddenly,
just as the little craft drew to within a yard or so
of the shore, we saw from behind a rock a red and
white cockade appear. There stood a gendarme !
Instantly the boat went on her way once more,
and the boys fell to whispering again behind the
rock. After a ^^'hile, to our great disgust, the
gendarme walked at leisure down the path and
cliatted in a friendly way with the conspirators.
He had been out for an afternoon stroll. Nothing
really dramatic or interesting in the smuggling
line seems to happen outside books.

PAIMPOL 103

The Fainipolais are a vigorous people. Fathers
and sons dedicate their Hves to the sea. With all
their roughness, the people are strictly religious.
The bay of Paimpol is under the protection of the
Virgin, and St. Anne is patron saint. All prayers
for those at sea are directed to these two saints,
whose statues stand prominently in the village.
At the end of every winter, before starting their
dangerous hfe anew, the fishermen are blessed
before the statues. The patron saint of the
mariners gazes down with lifeless eyes on genera-
tion after generation of men — on those whose luck
will be good and lives happy ; on those who are
destined never to return. At the opening of the
fishing season there is a ceremonial procession,
attended by the fatliers, mothers, sisters, and
Haneees of tlie fisher folk. Each man as he em-
barks is blessed by the priest and given a few last
words of advice. Then the boats move away, a big
flotilla of red-sailed fishing craft, the men singing
in loud vibrating voices, as they busy themselves
about their boats, the canticles of JMary, star of
the sea.

A SABOT STALL

• 1 -3Blfe* —

GUINGAMP

CHAPTER VIII

GUIXGAMP

On the way to Guingamp we travelled second-class.
In the first-class carriages one sits in solitary state,
M^th never a chance of studying the people of the
country. Half-way on our journey the train
stopped, and I was amused by the excitement and
perturbation of the passengers. They flew to the
windows, and heaped imprecations on the guard, the
engine-driver, and the railway company. As the
train remained stationary for several minutes, their
remarks became facetious. They inquired if un jicu
de charhon would be useful. Should they provide
the porter with a blade of straw wherewith to light
tlie engines ? They even offered their services in
pushing the train. One fat, red-faced commercial
traveller, who, by way of being witty, declared that
he was something of an engineer himself, descended
the steep steps of the carriage in order to assist the
officials. The French are born comedians — there is
no doubt about it. They manage to make thcm-

107 14—2

108 BRIl^TANY

selves extremely ridiculous. This man's behaviour
was like that of a clown in the circus. In attempt-
ing to unlock a carriage he got in the way of
everyone. The wait was long and tedious.

' II faut coucher sur la montagne ce soir,
mademoiselle,' said an old Breton who was puffing
contentedly at a clay pipe in the corner of the
carriage. He was very fat, and smothered up to
his chin in a loose blue blouse ; but he had a classic
head. It was like that of some Roman Emperor
carved in bronze. His eyes were of cerulean blue.
His was the head of a man born to command.
There was something almost imperial in the pose
and set of it. Nevertheless, this peasant lived, no
doubt, in the depth of the coimtry, probably in
some hovel of a cottage, ^vith a slovenly yellow-
faced wife (women in the wilds of Brittany grow
old and plain very early), dirty children, and a few
pigs and cows. He had been attending a market,
and he spoke with great importance of his pur-
chases there. He descended at a minute station
on the line, and I watched him as he started on his
fifteen-mile drive in a ramshackle wooden cart.

We were cold and sleepy when we arrived at
Guingamp, so much so tliat we forgot to be
nervous as we crossed the line with our many

LA vieille:sse

GUINGAMP 109

ba<j^s and bandboxes. When you arrixe at a station
in Brittany, you arc met by a bevy of men in gold-
lace caps, who instantly set up a noisy chatter.
You assume that they must be advertising various
hotels ; but it is quite impossible to distinguish.
Travellers, especially the English, are rarities at
this season. As a rule I carefully chose the
omnibus which was cleanest, and the driver who
was most respectful, in spite of many persuasions
to the contrary ; but on this occasion I was so limp
and tired that I allowed my traps to be snatched
from my hands and followed our guide meekly.
It might have been the dirtiest ho\'el of an inn
towards which we were going rapidly over the
cobbled stones of the town — it was all one to me.

By great good luck we happened to chance on
the Hotel de France, where we were greeted by
tlie maitresse d' hot el, a kindly woman, and without
further delay, although it sounds somewhat gour-
nuuicle to say so, sat down to one of the best
dinners it has ever been my lot to eat. The
kitchen was exactly opposite the salle a manger,
the door of which was open for all to see within.
There we could observe the chef, rotund and rosy-
cheeked, in spotless white cap and apron, busy
among multitudinous pots and pans which shone

no BRITTANY

like gold. His assistants, boys in butcher-blue
cotton, flew hither and thither at his command,
busily chopping this and whipping up that. The
various dishes I do not remember distinctly ; I
only know that each one (1 once heard an epicure
speak thus) was a 'poem.' Of all that glorious
menu, only the escalopes de veau stands out clearly,
laurel- wreathed, in my memory. At the table
there were the usual commercial travellers. Also
there were several glum, hard-featured Englisli-
women and one man.

How is it that one dislikes one's own country-
men abroad so much ? It is unpatriotic to say so,
but 1 really think that the Continental travelling
portion of Britishers must be a race apart, a different
species ; for a more unpleasant, impolite, plain, and
badly-dressed set of people it has never been my
lot to meet elsewhere. The word ' English ' at
this rate will soon become an epithet. All the
women resemble the worst type of schoolmistress,
and all the men retired tradesmen.

Guingamp, by the light of day, is a pretty town,
with nothing particularly imposing or attractive,
although at one time it was an important city of
the Duchy of Penthievre. Its only remnant of
ancient glory consists in the church of Notre

GUINGAMP 111

Dame de Bon Secours, a bizarre and irregular
monument, dating from the fifteenth century. In
the cool of the evening the environs of Guingamp
are very beautiful. It is dehghtful to lean over
some bridge spanning the dark river. Only the
sound of washerwomen beating their linen, and the
splash of clothes rinsed in the water, disturb the
quiet.

The scenery is soft and silvery in tone, like the
landscape of a Corot. Slim, bare silver birches
overhang the blackened water, and on either side
of the river grow long grasses, waving backwards
and forwards in the wind, now purple, now gray.
Down a broad yellow road troops of black and
red cows are being driven, and horses with their
blue wooden harness are drawing a cart laden with
trunks of trees, led by a man in a blue blouse,
with many an encouraging deep- voiced ' Hoop loo !'
Everyone is bringing home cows, or wood, or cider
apples. The sky is broad and gray, with faint
purple clouds. Three dear little girls, pictures
every one of them, are walking along the road,
taking up the whole breadth of it, and carrying
carefully between them two large round baskets
full to overflowing with red and green apples.
Each little maid wears on her baby head a tight

112 BRITTANY

^^•llite lace cap through which the glossy black hair
shines, a bunchy broad cloth skirt,a scarlet cross-
over shawl, and heavy sabots. They are miniatures
of their mothers. They look like old women cut
short, as they come toddling leisurely along the
road, a large heavy basket suspended between them,
singing a pretty Breton ballad in shrill trebles :

' J'ai mange des cerises avec moii petit cousin,
J'ai mange cles cerises, des cerises du voisin.'

I caught the words as they passed, and remembered
the melody. I had as a child known the ballad in
my old convent. When they were past they tried
to look back at the demoiselle Anglaise, and, un-
heeding, tripped over a large heap of stones in the
roadway. Down tumbled children, baskets, and
all. ^^"hat a busy quarter of an hour we all
spent, on our knees in the dust, rubbing up and
replacing tlie apples, lest mother should guess
they had been dropped! Finally, we journeyed
on into Guingamp in company.

A BEGGAR

HUELGOAT

CHAPTER IX

HUELGOAT

To reach Huelgoat one must take tlie hotel
omnibus from the railway-station, and wind up
and up for about an hour. Then you reach the
village. The scenery is mountainous, and quite
grand for Brittany. The aspect of this country is
extraordinarily varied. On the way to Huelgoat
one passes little ribbon-like rivers with bridges
and miniature waterfalls, and hills covered by
bracken and heather. Tlie air is bracing.

At the top of one of the hills the carriage was
stopped, and a chubby boy in a red here and sabots
presented himself at the door, with the request
that we should descend and see the ' gofFre.' Not
knowing what the ' goffre ' might be, we followed
our imperious guide down a precipitous path, all
mud and slippery rocks, with scarcely sufficient
foothold. At length we found ourselves in a dark
wood, with mysterious sounds of rushing water all
about us. When our eyes became accustomed to

115 15_2

116 BRITTANY

the darkness we discovered tliat this proceeded
from a body of water which ruslied, dark-brown
and angry-looking, down the rocks, and fell foam-
ing, amber-coloured, into a great black hole.
Plucking at our skirts, the child drew us to the
edge, whispering mysteriously, as he pointed down-
wards, ' C'est la maison du diable.' A few planks
had been lightly placed across the yawning abyss,
and over the rude bridge the peasants passed
cheerfully on their way to work or from it —
woodcutters with great boughs of trees on their
shoulders, and millers with sacks of flour. One
shuddered to think what might happen if a sack
or a bougli were to fall and a man were to lose his
balance. Even the child admitted that the place
was un peu danger eiioc, and led us rapidly up the
nmddy path to the road. There we found to our
astonishment tliat the carriage had gone on to the
hotel. As my mother is not a good walker and
dishkes insecure places and climbing of any kind,
we felt rather hopeless ; but the child assured us
that the distance was not great. He seemed rather
disgusted at our feebleness and hesitation. With-
out another word, he crossed the road and dived
into a forest, leaving us to follow as best we might.
Soon we were in one of the most beautiful woods

A WAYSIDE SHRINE, HUELGOAT

HUELGOAT 117

imaginable, among long, slim pines, of which you
could see only the silver stems, unless you gazed
upwards, when the vivid green of the leaves against
the sky was almost too crude in its brilliancy.
The path was covered with yellow pine-needles,
which, in parts where the sun lit upon them
through the trees, shone as pure gold. On either
side grew bracken, salmon, and red, and tawny-
yellow ; here and there were spots of still more
vivid colour, formed by toadstools which had been
changed by the sun to brightest vermilion and
orange. I have never seen anything more beauti-
ful than this combination — the forest of slim
purple stems, the bracken, the golden path, and,
looking up, the vivid green of the trees and the
blue of the sky. The child led us on through the
wood, never deigning to address a w^ord to us, his
hands in his pockets, and his here pulled over his
eyes. Sometimes the path descended steeply ;
sometimes it was a hard pull uphill, and we were
forced to stop for breath. Always the merciless
child went on, until my mother almost sobbed and
declared that this was not the right way to the
hotel. Now and then we emerged into a more open
space, where there were huge rocks and boulders
half-covered with moss and ivy, some as much as

US BRITTANY

twenty feet high, hke playthings of giants tlirown
liither and thitlier carelessly one on the top of the
other. Over some of these, slippery and worn
almost smooth, we had to cross for miles until we
reached the hotel, tired.

Luncheon was a strange meal. No one spoke :
there was silence all the time. About thirty
people were seated at a long table, all lodgers
in the hotel ; but they were mute. Two young
persons of the boiu-geois class, out for their yearly
holiday, came in rather late, and stopped on the
threshold dumbfounded at sight of the silent
crowd, for French people habitually make a great
deal of noise and clatter at their meals. They sat
opposite to us, and spent an embarrassed time.

AA^hen you visit Huelgoat you are told that the
great and only thing to do is to take an excursion
to St. Herbot. This all the up-to-date guide-books
will tell you with empressement. Eut my advice
to you is — ' Don't !' Following the instructions or
Messrs. Cook, we took a carriage to St. Ilcrbot.
It was a very long and uninteresting drive through
sombre scenery, and when we arrived there was
only a very mediocre small church to be seen.
The peasants begged us to visit the grand cascade ;
our driver almost went down on his bended knees

HUELGOAT 119

to implore us to view the cascade. We would
have no cascades. Cascades such as one sees in
Brittany, small and insignificant affairs, bored us ;
we had visited them by the score. The driver was
terribly disappointed ; tears stood in his eyes. He
had expected time for a drink. The peasants had
anticipated liberal tips for showing us the view.
They all swore in the Breton tongue. Our
charioteer drove us home, at break-neck speed,
over the most uneven and worst places he could
discover on the road.

FISHING-BOATS, CONCARNEAU

CONCARNEAU

AT THE FOUNTAIN, CONCARNEAU

/■?!• ft

CHAPTER X

CONCARNEAU

This little town, with its high gray walls, is very-
important. In olden days its possession was dis-
puted by many a valiant captain. The fortress
called the ' Ville Close ' has been sacrificed since
then to military usage. The walls of granite,
which are very thick, are pierced by three gates,
doubled by bastions and flanked by machicolated
towers. At each high tide tlie sea surrounds the
fortress. Tradition tells us that on one occasion
at the Fete Dieu the floods retired to make way
for a religious procession of children and clergy,
with golden banners and crosses, in order that they
might make the complete tour of the ramparts.
Tliis fortress, a little city in itself, is joined to
Concarneau by a bridge, and it is on the fiirther
side that industry and animation are to be found.
There is a fair-sized port, where hundreds of
sardine-boats are moored, their red and gray nets
hanging on their masts.

123 lG-2

lJ>i liUITTANY

The activity of the port is due to the sardines,
and its prosperity is dependent on the abundance
of the fish. U'owards the month of June the
sardines arri^'e in great shoals on the coast of
Brittany. For some time no one knew whence
tliey came or whither they went. An approximate
idea of their journey ings has now been gained.
Their route, it seems, is invariable. During March
and April the sardines appear on the coasts of
the Adriatic and the INIediterranean ; they pass
tlu'ough the Straits of Gibraltar, skirting Spain
and Portugal ; they reach France in May. In
June they are to be found on the coast of
Morbihan and Concarneau, in August in the Bay
of Douarnenez, in September by the Isle de Batz,
and later in England or in Scotland.

It is to be hoped that the fish will always
abound about the coast of Concarneau. The
women population is engaged in industries con-
nected with sardines. The making and mending
of the nets and the preparation and packing of
tlie fish are in themselves a labour employing
many women. AVhen the sardines have been un-
loaded from the ships, they are brought to the
large warehouses on the quay and submitted to the
various processes of cleaning and drying. Rows of

CONCARNEAU HARBOUR

CONCARNEAU 125

women sit at long deal tables cutting off the heads
of the fish, and singing at tlieir work. The fish are
then cleaned of the salt which the fishermen threw
on them, and dried in the open air on iron grills.
During this time other workmen are employed in
boiling oil in iron basins. The sardines, once dried,
are plunged into the oil for about two minutes,
sufhcient to cook them, and are afterwards dried
in the sun. They are then placed in small tin
boxes, hali-filled with oil, which are taken to be
soldered. The solderers, armed with irons at white
heat, hermetically close the boxes, which are then
ready to be delivered to the trade. This simple
process is quite modern ; it was instituted at the
end of the last century. The nets, which cost the
fishermen thirty francs, take thirty days to make.
The machine-made nets are less expensive ; but it
is said that tliey are not sufficiently elastic, and the
meshes enlarged by the weight of fish do not
readily close up again.

Each sardine-boat is manned by four or five
men armed with an assortment of nets. The bait
consists of the intestines of a certain kind of fish.
The fishermen plunge their arms up to the elbow
in the loathsome mixture, seizing handfuls to
throw into the water. If the sardines take to

126 UK ITT ANY

the bait, one soon sees the water on either side
of the A'essel wliite and gray with the scales of
the fish. Then the men begin to draw in the nets.
Two of them seize the ends and pull horizontally
through the water ; the others unfasten the heads
of the fish caught in the meshes. The sardines are
tumbled into the bottom of the boat, and sprinkled
with salt.

The sardines, delicate creatures, die in the air
in a few seconds. In dying they make a noise
very like the cry of a mouse.

After the first haul the fishermen have some
idea of the dimensions of the fish, and adjust the
mesh of their nets, — for the sardines vary in size
from one day to another according to the shoals
on which the fishermen chance.

THE SARDINE FLEET, CONCARNEAU

MORLATX

WATCHING FOR THE FISHING FLEET,
CONCARNEAU

S-?WWf

^'*^

-^ -

'^■^ --^

CHAPTER XI

MORLAIX

* S'lLS tu te mordent, mords les,' is the proud
device of the town of JVIorlaix, and the glorious
pages of her chronicles justify the motto. INIorlaix
has from all time been dear to the hearts of the
Dukes of Brittany for her faithfulness, which
neither reverse nor failure has ever altered. Even
during the Wars of the Succession, after the most
terrible calamities, she still maintained a stout
heart and a bold front. She espoused the cause of
Charles of Blois, which cost her the lives of fifty of
her finest men, whom the Due de INIonfort hanged
under false pretences.

Morlaix is a quaint little town — all gables,
pointed roofs, and projecting windows. There are
streets so narrow that in perspective the roofs
appear to meet overhead. They are of wonderful
colours. You will see white houses with chocolate
woodwork, and yellow houses, stained by time,
with projecting windows. In some cases there are

129 17

130 BRITTANY

small shops on the ground-floor. The town seems
to be built in terraces, to which one mounts by
steps with iron railings. You are for ever climb-
ing, either up or down, in Morlaix ; and the only
footgear that seems to be at all appropriate to its
roughly cobbled streets is the thick w^ooden nail-
studded sabot of the Breton.

Most of the houses on the outskirts have gardens
on the tops of the roofs ; it is odd, when looking
up a street, to see scarlet geraniums nodding over
the gray stonework, and, sometimes, vines meet-
ing in a green tracery above your head.

There are in INIorlaix whole streets in which
every house has a pointed roof, where all the slates
are gray and scaly, and each story projects over
another, the last one projecting farthest, with,
on tlie ground-floor, either a clothier's shop or a
quincaillerie bright with gleaming pots and pans
and blue enamelled buckets. This lowest story
has ahvays large wooden painted shutters flung
back.

I'he houses are unlike those of any other town
I have seen in Brittany. There are always about
five solid square rafters under each story, and each
rafter is carved at the end into some grotesque little
image or flower. There is much painted wood-

MORLAIX 131

work about the windows, and criss-cross beams
sometimes run down the whole length of the
house. There are still many strange old blackened
edifices, sculptured from top to bottom, which
have remained intact during four centuries with
a sombre obstinacy. At the angles you often see
grotesque figures of biniou-players, arabesques,
and leaves, varied in the most bizarre manner,
and so delicately and beautifully executed that
they would form material for six ' JMusees de Cluny.'
These vast high houses are very dirty, crumbling
like old cheeses, and almost as multitudinously
alive. Each story is separated by massive beams,
carved in a profusion of ornaments ; each window
has small leaded panes. The rest of the facade is
carved with lozenge-shaped slates.

Morlaix, of course, has her INIaison de la Reine
Anne, of which she is proud. It is a characteristic
house, with straight powerful lines. The door,
greenish-black, is of fluted wood. The whole
building is covered with an infinity of detail — ■
ludicrous faces, statuettes, and carved figures of
saints. Inside it has almost no decoration. The
white walls rise to the top of the house plain
and unadorned, sa\ e for a very elaborate staircase
of rich chestnut-coloured wood very beautifully

17—2

132 BRITTANY

carved, with bridges, branching off from right to
left, leading to the various apartments. At tlie
top is a sculptured figure — either of the patron
saint of the house or of some sanit especially
beloved in Brittany.

The town is a mixture of antiquity and mo-
dernity. Though her houses and streets are old,
ISIorlaix possesses the most modern of viaducts,
284 metres long, giving an extraordinary aspect
to the place. AA^hcn you arrive at night you
see the town glistening with myriads of lights,
so far below that it seems incredible. You do
not realize that the railway is built upon a
viaduct: it seems as if you were suspended in
mid-air.

When we arrived at INIorlaix, a man with a
carriage and four horses offered to drive us to
Huelgoat for a very modest sum ; but I vowed
that all the king's horses and all the king's men
would not tear me away that day. There was
much to be seen. One never wearies of wandering
through the streets of this fine old town, gazing
up at the houses, and losing one's way among
the ancient and dark by-ways. JNIorlaix is in a
remarkable state of preservation. The houses
generally do not suggest ruin or decay. The

MEDIEVAL HOUSE AT MORLAIX

MORLAIX 133

town seems to have everlasting youth. This is
principally owing to the great love of the people
for art and the picturesque, which has led them to
renovate and rebuild constantly. For this reason,
some of the structures are of great archaeological
value.

The religious edifices are few. Indeed, I saw
only the little church of St. Milaine, its belfry
dwarfed by the prodigious height of the viaduct.
It is a gem of architecture. The stonework is
carved to resemble lace, and both inside and
out the building is in the pure Gothic style.

Storms are very sudden in INIorlaix. Sometimes
on a sunny day, when all the world is out of doors,
the wind will rise, knocking down the tailors'
dummies and scattering the tam-o'-shanters hang-
ing outside the clothiers'. Then comes rain in
torrents. How the peasants scuttle ! What a
clatter of wooden-shod feet o^^er the cobbles as
they run for shelter ! Umbrellas appear like mush-
rooms on a midsummer-night. Once I saw some
old women in the open square with baskets of lace
and crotchet-work and bundles of clothes stretched
out for sale. When the rain began they fell into
a great fright, and strove to cover their wares with
old sacks, baskets, umbrellas — anything tliat was

134 T^RITTANY

ready to hand. I felt inclined to run out of the
hotel and help. As suddenly as the storm had
risen, the sun came out, clear and radiant. I never
knew the air to be so invigorating and bright any-
where in Brittany as it is in Morlaix.

PONT-AVEN

OUTSIDE THE SMITHY. PONT-AVEN

CHAPTER XII

PONT-AVEN

PoNT-AvEN is associated with agreeable memories.
This village in the South of Finistere draws men
and women from all over Europe, summer after
summer. JMany of them stay there throughout the
winter, content to be shut off from the world, allow-
ing the sweet and gentle lassitude of the place to lull
their cares and troubles. Is it climatic — this sooth-
ing influence — or is it the outcome of a spell woven
over beautiful Pont-Aven by some good-natured
fairy long ago ? I have often wondered. Certain
it is that intelligent men, many of them painters,
have been content to spend years in Pont-Aven.
Some time ago Mother and Father, touring in
Brittany, came to this delightful spot, and deter-
mined to spend three weeks there. They stayed
three years.

All my life I have heard stories of this wonderful
place, and of their first visit. It was when my
father had only just begun his career as a painter.

137 18

138 BRITTANY

The experience, he says, was a great education.
There he found himself in an amazing nest of
French and American painters, all the newer
lights of the French school. He was free to
work at whate^Tr he liked, yet with unlimited
chances of widening, by daily argument, his
knowledge of technical problems. For the three
years that he remained on this battlefield of creeds
conflicts of opinion raged constantly. Everyone
was frantically devoted to one or another of the
dominating principles of the moderns. There was
a bevy of schools there.

One, called the Stripists, painted in stripes, with
vivid colour as nearly prismatic as possible, all the
scenery around. Then, there were the Dottists,
wlio painted in a series of dots. There were also
the Spottists — a sect of the Dottists, whose
differentiation was too subtle to be understood.
JNIen there were who had a theory that you must
ruin your digestion before you could paint a
masterpiece. No physically healthy person, they
declared, could hope to do fine work. They used
to try to bring about indigestion.

One man, celebrated for his painting of pure
saints with blue dresses, over which Paris would
go crazy, never attempted to paint a saint until

PONT-AVEN 139

he had drunk three glasses of absinthe and bathed
his face in ether. Another decided that he was
going to have, in Paris, an exhibition of merry-go-
rounds which should startle France. He had a
theory that the only way to get at the soul of a
thing was to paint when drunk. He maintained
that the merry-go-rounds whirled faster then.
One day my father went to his studio. He was
dazed. He did not know whether he was standing
on his head or his heels. It was impossible to see
' Black Bess ' or any of the pet horses he knew so
well. The pictures were one giddy whirl.

Then, there was the Bitumen school, a group of
artists who never painted anything but white sun-
lit houses with bitumen shadows. A year or two
afterwards a terrible thing invariably happened.
Without any warning whatsoever, the pictures
would suddenly slide from off their canvases to
the floor. Tlie bitumen had melted.

The Primitives afforded joy. Their distinctive
mark was a walking-stick, carved by a New
Zealand JNIaori, which they carried about v/ith
them. It gave them inspiration. So powerful
was the influence of these sticks that even the
head of a Breton peasant assumed the rugged
aspect of the primitive carvings in their paintings.

18—2

140 BRITTANY

The most enthusiastic disciple of the sect was a
youth who was continually receiving marvellous
inspirations. Once, after having shut himself up
for three days, he appeared looking haggard and
ravenous. Without a word, he sat down heavily
near a table, called for absinthe, and, groaning,
dropped his head in his hands, and murmured,
' Ah, me ! Ah, me I' All beholders were in a
fever to know what the mystery was. After
some minutes of dead silence the young man
rose majestically from his chair, stretched forth one
arm, and, with a far-away look in his eyes, said,
' Friends, last night, when you were all asleep, a
beautiful creature came to me in spirit form, and
taught me the secret of drawing ; and I drew this.'
Then he brought out a picture. It was far above
his usual style, and the more credulous envied his
good fortune. Some weeks afterwards, however,
it was discovered by a painter with detective
instincts that the marvellous vision was in reality
a cJicimbre cm clair — that is to say, a prism through
which objects are reflected on paper, enabling one
to trace them with great facility.

Such are the extraordinary people among whom
Mother and Father found themselves on their first
visit to Pont-Aven — geniuses some of them, mere

IN AN AUBERGE, PONT-AVEN

rONT-AVEN 141

daubers others, all of them strange and rough and
weu-d. More hke wild beasts they looked than
human beings, Mother told me ; for very few
women came to Pont-Aven in the early days, and
those were Bohemians. The artists allowed their
hair and beards to grow long. Day after day they
wore the same old paint-stained suits of corduroys,
battered wide-brimmed hats, loose flannel shirts, and
coarse w^ooden sabots stuffed with straw.

Mother, who was very young at the time, has
often told me that she will never forget their
arrival at the little Hotel Gleanec. They were
shown into a salle a manger, where rough men
sat on either side of a long table, serving themselves
out of a common dish, and dipping great shces of
bread into their plates.

INIother was received with great courtesy by
them. She found it very amusing to watch the
gradual change in their appearance day by day —
the donning of linen collars and cuffs and the
general smartening up. INlany of the men who
wTre then struggling with the alphabet of art have
reached the highest rungs of the ladder of fame,
and their names have become almost household
words ; others have sunk into oblivion, and are still
amateurs.

142 BRITTANY

The chief hotel in the village was the Hotel des
Voyageurs, to which IMother and Father soon
migrated. It was kept by a wonderful woman, called
Julia. Originally a peasant girl, she had by untiring
energy become the proprietress of the great estab-
lishment. Her fame as hostess and manager was
bruited all over France. Everyone seemed to
know of Juha, and year after year artists and their
families came back regularly to stay with her. She
is a woman with a strong individuality. She
gathered a large custom among artists, who flocked
to the Hotel des Voyageurs as much because of
the charm of Mdlle. Julia, and the comfort of her
house, as for the beauty of the scenery.

There was a delightful intimacy among the
guests, most of whom were very intelhgent.
JNldlle. Julia took a sincere interest in the career
of each. All went to her with their troubles and
their joys, certain of sympathy and encouragement.
Many are the young struggling painters she has
helped substantially, often allowing them to live on
in the hotel for next to nothing. Many are the
unpaid bills of long standing on the books of this
generous woman. I fear that she has never made
the hotel pay very well, for the elaborate menu and
good accommodation are out of all proportion to

PONT-AVEN 143

her charges. A strong woman is Mdlle. Julia.
She has been known to hft a full-grown man and
carry him out of doors, landing him ignominiously
in the mud.

There was one man, a retired military officer,
whom no one else could manage. He had come to
stay in Pont-Aven because he could live there for
a few francs a day and drink the rest. He suffered
from hallucinations, and took great pleasure in
chasing timid artists over the countryside, chal-
lenging them to duels, and insulting them in every
way possible. He was the terror of the village.
He had a house on the quay, and early one morning
when the snow was thick upon the ground, just
because a small vessel came into the river and
began blowing a trumpet, or making a noise of
some kind, he sprang out of bed in a towering rage,
rushed in his nightshirt into the street, and began
sharpening his sword on a rock, shouting to the
ship's captain to come out and be killed if he dared.
The captain did not dare. The only person of
whom this extraordinary person stood in awe was
Mdlle. Julia. Her he would obey without a
murmur. No one knew why. Perhaps there had
been some contest between them. At any rate,
they understood each other.

144 BRITTANY

The friends of ^Idlle.. Julia ranged from the Mayor
of the town to Batiste, the butcher, who sat outside
his door all day and watched her every movement.

' If 1 want to remember where I have been,
and what I did at a certain hour, I have only to
ask Batiste,' she was wont to say.

All the artists worshipped the ground she trod
upon ; and well they might, for they would never
have a better friend than she. Her salle a
manger and grand salon were panelled with
pictures, some of which are very valuable to-day.
Tender-hearted she was, and strong-minded, with
no respect for persons. Mother told me that once
when my brother and sister, babies of three and
four years old, were posing for Father on the beach
with only their linen sunbonnets on, their limbs
were somewhat sunburnt and blistered. AVhen
they returned to the hotel, Mdlle. JuHa applied
sweet oil and cold cream to the tender skin, and
rated my parents soundly between her tears of
compassion for the little ones. It was of no use
explaining that it was in the cause of art. She
bade them in unmeasured terms to send art to the
Devil, and scolded them as if they were children.
I doubt not she would have reprimanded the King
of England with as little compunction.

A SAND-CART ON THE QUAY, PONT-AVEN

'ina'

-.^^'-

"f's^aSai^^

PONT-AVEN 145

JMdlle. Julia made the reputation of Pont-Aven
by her own overpowering individiuiHty. If she
went to Paris or elsewhitlier for a few days,
everyone in the village felt her absence. Things
were not the same. Pont-A\ en seemed momen-
tarily to have lost its charm. The meals were
badly cooked and worse served ; the homics were
neglectful. All missed the ringing laugh and
cheery presence of Julia. How soon one knew
when she had returned ! What a flutter there
was among the bonnes ! What a commotion !
How everyone flew hither and thither at her
command ! She seemed to fill the hotel with her
presence.

I went to Pont-Aven when I was ten years old,
and T remember well how JMdlle. Julia came to
meet us, driving twenty miles through the deep
snow. AVhat happy days those were in the dear
little village ! We lived as wild things, and enjoyed
life to the full. jNI. Grenier, the schoolmaster,
acted as tutor to us. He was lenient. AVe spent
our time mainly in rambling over the countryside,
making chocolate in JMdlle. Julia's wood, bird-
nesting, and apple-stealing. JM. Grenier taught us
to row, and we learnt all the various intricate
currents and dangerous sandbanks so thoroughly

146 BRITTANY

that after a time we could almost have steered
through that complicated river bhndfold. We
learnt how to make boats out of wood, and how
to carve our names in a professional manner on
trees. AVe became acquainted with a large selec-
tion of Breton ballads and a good deal of rough
botany. JMore advanced lessons have faded from
my mind. Of actual book-learning we accom-
plished very little. INlany a time M. Grenier pulled
himself together, brought us new copybooks, fine
pens, his French grammar and readers, and settled
us down in the salon to work ; but gradually the
task would pall on both master and scholars, and
before the morning was half over we would be out
in the fields and woods again, 'just for a breath of
fresh air.'

Children liave the power of making themselves at
home in a foreign country. AVithin a week my
brother and I knew everyone in the viUage. We
became acquainted with all their family affairs and
troubles. In many households we were welcome
at any time of the day. Tliere was the sabot-
maker, whom we never tired of watching as he
cleverly and rapidly transformed a square block of
wood into a rounded, shapely sabot. He was
always busy, and sometimes turned out a dozen

rONT-AVEN 147

pairs in a day. To my great joy, he presented me
with a beautiful little pair, which I wore painfully,
but with much pride. Although when you become
accustomed to them sabots are comfortable and
sensible gear, at first they are extremely awkward.
Of course, you can kick them off before you enter
a house, and run about in the soft woollen chausson
with a leather sole which is always worn under-
neath. Round the hotel doorway there is always
a collection of sabots awaiting their owners. In a
country such as Brittany, where it rains a good
detil, and the roads are often deep in mud, they are
the only possible wear. The sabot is a product of
evolution. In that respect it is like the hansom
cab which is a thing of beauty simply because it
has been thought out with regard to its usefulness
and comfort alone.

Batiste, the butcher, was a great friend of ours.
With morbid fascination we witnessed his slaughter
of pigs and cows. Then, soon we knew where to
get the best crepes. These are pancakes of a kind,
so thin that you can see through them, made
on a round piece of metal over a blazing fire.
Eaten hot, with plenty of butter and sugar, they
are equal to anything in our English cookery.
There was one particular old lady living do^\Ti by

19—2

148 BRITTANY

the bridge who made crepes. We saw her mixing
the ingredients, mostly flour and water, and spread-
ing the dough over the round piece of metal. It
became hard in an instant, and curled up brown
and crisp, as thin as a lace handkerchief. Like-
wise, we knew where to buy bowls of milk thick
with cream for one sou. We had to tramp over
several fields and to scale several fences before we
found ourselves in the kitchen of a large farm,
where the housewife was busy pouring milk into
large copper vessels. Seated at the polished
mahogany table, we drank from dainty blue
bowls.

I went back to Pont-Aven recently, and found
it very little changed. AVe travelled by diligence
from Concarneau ; but, as the conveyance left only
once a day, we had several hours to while away.
The Concarneau and Pont-Aven diligence is quaint
and primitive, devoid of springs, and fitted with
extremely narrow and hard seats. We passed
through villages in which every house seemed to
be either a buvettc or a debit de boisson. At these
our driver — a man in a blue blouse and a black
felt hat — had to deliver endless parcels, for which
he dived continually under the seat on which we
were sitting. For discharging each commission he

PLAYING ON THE ' PLACE,' PONT-AVEN

^^- dM

|K. ..

dk'-^'

4^-

PONT-AVEN 149

received several glasses of cider and wine. He
stopped at every place to drink and talk with the
host, quite oblivious of his passengers. With every
mile he became more uproarious.

Our only travelling companion was an old
woman in the costume of the country, with a
yellow and wrinkled face. On her arm she carried
a large basket and a loaf of bread two yards
long. Ruthlessly she trod on our toes with her
thick black sabots in getting in. Although T
helped her with her basket and her bread, she
never volunteered a word of thanks, but merely
snatched them from my hands. Many Bretons
are scarcely of higher intelligence than the live-
stock of the farms. They live in the depths of
the country with their animals, sleeping in the
same room with them, rarely leaving their own
few acres of ground. The women work as hard
as the men, digging in the fields and toiling in the
forests from early morning until night.

At one of the villages where the diligence
stopped, a blacksmith, a young giant, handsome,
dark, came out from the smithy with his dog,
which he was sending to some gentleman with
hunting proclivities in Pont-Aven. The animal —
what is called a cJiieii de la chassc — was attached

150 BllIlTANY

by a long chain to the step, and the dihgencc
started off. The blacksmith stood in the door of
his smithy, and watched the dog disappear with
wistful eyes. The Bretons have a soft spot in
their hearts for animals. The dog itself was the
picture of misery. His moans and howls wrung
one's heart. I never saw an animal more wily.
He tried every conceivable method of slipping his
collar. He pulled at the chain, and wriggled from
one side to another. Once he contrived to work
his ear under the collar, and my fingers itched to
help him. Had the truant escaped, I could not
have informed the driver. Strange that one's
sympathies are always with the weakest I In
novels, an escaping convict, no matter how terrible
his guilt, always has my sympathy, and I am
hostile to the pursuing warder.

As we drew near to I'ont-Aven the scenery
became more and more beautiful. On either side
of the road stretched miles and miles of brilliant
mustard-yellow gorse, mingled with patches of
dried reddish bracken, and bordered by rows of
blue-green pines. Here and there one saw great
rocks half-covered with the velvet-green of mosses
thrown hither and thither in happy disorder.
Sometimes ivy takes root in the crevices of the rocks

PONT-AVEN 151

where a little earth has gathered, and creeps closely
round about them, as if anxious to convey life and
warmth to the cold stone. The sun, like a red
ball, was setting behind the hills, leaving the sky
flecked with clouds of the palest mauves and pinks,
resembling the fine piece of marbling one some-
times sees inside the covers of modern well-bound
books. Now and then we passed a little ruined
chapel — consecrated, no doubt, to some very
ancient saint (it was impossible to make out the
name), a saint whose cult was evidently lost, for
the little shrine was tumbling to ruins. We saw
by the wayside little niches sheltering sacred foun-
tains, the waters of which cure certain diseases ;
and passed peasants on the roadside, sometimes
on horseback, sometimes walking — large, well-
proportioned, fine-featured men of proud bearing.
In Brittany the poorest peasant is a free and
independent man. He salutes you out of polite-
ness and good nature ; but he does not cringe
as if recognising himself to be lower in the social
scale. The Breton, howsoever poor, is no less
dignified under his blue blouse than his ancestors
were under their steel armour.

A long straight road leads from Concarneau to
Pont-Aven, and at the end of it lies the pretty

152 BRITTANY

village among hills of woods and of rocks bathed
in a light mist. One could almost imagine that
it was a Swiss village in miniature. By the time
we arrived it was night. We could only discern
clean white houses on either side, and water rush-
ing under a bridge over which we passed. The
Hotel des Voyageurs looked much the same as
ever, except that over the way a large building
had been added to the annexe. To our great
disappointment, we discovered that INIdlle. Julia
had gone to Paris ; but we recognised several of
the bonnes and a hoary veteran called Joseph, who
liad been in Julia's service for over twenty years.

Gladly I rushed out next morning. There is
nothing more delightful than to visit a place where
one has been happy for years as a child, especially
such a place as Pont-Aven, which changes little.
My first thought was to see the Bois d' Amour.
I found it quite unchanged. To be sure, I had
some difficulty in finding the old pathway wliich
led to the wood, so many strange houses and
roadways had been built since we were there ;
but at length we found it — that old steep path
with the high walls on either side, on which the
blackberries grew in profusion. There are two
paths in the forest — one, low down, which leads

ON THE QUAY AT PONT-AVEN

PONT-AVEN 153

by the stream, and the other above, carpeted with
silver leaves. A wonderful wood it is — a joyous
harmony in green and gold. Giant chestnuts fill
the air with their perfumed leaves, forming an
inextricable lattice-work overhead, one branch en-
twining with the other, the golden rays of the sun
filtering through. The ground is carpeted with
silver and salmon leaves left from last autumn ;
the pines shed thousands of brown cones, and
streams of resin flow down their trunks. It is
well-named the Bois d'xVmour. Below nms a
little stream. Now it foams and bounds, beating
itself against a series of obstacles ; now it flows
calmly, as if taking breath, clear, silver, and limpid,
past little green islands covered with flowers, and
into bays dark with the black mud beneath. Low-
growing trees and bushes flourish on the banks,
some throAving themselves across the stream as
barricades, over which the laughing water bounds
and leaps unheedingly, scattering diamonds and
topaz in the sunlight. Everything in the Bois
d' Amour seems to join in the joyous song of
Nature. The little stream sings ; the trees
murmur and rustle in the wind ; and the big
black mill-wheel, glistening with crystal drops,
makes music with the water.

154 BHUTAN Y

By the riverside, women are washing their clothes
on square slabs of stone, which stretch across the
water. It was on these stepping-stones, I remem-
ber, that my brother and I lost our shoes and
stockings. At one place .the stream is hidden from
sight by thick bushes, and you find yourself in a
narrow green lane, a green alley, walled on either
side and roofed overhead by masses of trees and
bushes, through which the sun filters occasionally
in golden patches. ^Vhenever I walk down that
lane, 1 think of the song that my bonne Marie
taught me there one day ; it comes back as freshly
now as if it had been but yesterday. The refrain
begins, ' Et mon coeur vol, vol et vol, et vol, vers
les cieux.'

One meets the river constantly during this walk,
and every mile or so you come across a little black
mill. The mills in Pont-Aven are endless, and this
sapng is an old one : ' Pont-Aven ville de renom,
quatorze moulins, quinze maisons.'

Picturesque little mills they are. The jet-black
wheels form a delightful contrast to the vivid green
round about ; and small bridges of stones, loosely
put together and moss-grown here and there, cross
the river at intervals.

I love this rough, wild country. How variable

ON THE STEPS OF THE MILL HOUSE,
PONT-AVEN

(

wt^

PONT-AVEN 155

it is ! You may sit in a wood with the stream at
your feet, and all about you will be great hills
half-covered with gorse and bracken, and here and
there huge blocks of granite, which seem ready to
fall any moment.

The Bois d'Amour is a happy hunting-ground of
artists. This particular view of the mill at which I
gazed so long has been a stock-subject with painters
for many years. You never pass without seeing at
least one or two men with canvases spread and
easels erected, vainly trying to reproduce the
beautiful scene. Artists are plentiful in this
country. Wherever you may wander within a
radius of fifteen miles, you cannot stop at some
attractive prospect without hearing an impatient
cough behind you, and, turning, find yourself
obstructing the view of a person in corduroys and
flannel shirt, with a large felt hat, working, pipe
aglow, at an enormous canvas. The artists, who
are mostly English, are thought very little of by
the people about. I once heard a commercial
traveller talking of Pont-Aven.

' Pshaw !' he said, ' they are all English and
Americans there. Everything is done for the
English. At the Hotel des Voyageurs even the
cuisine is English. It is unbearable ! At the table

20—2

156 BRUT ANY

the men wear clothes of inconceivable colour and
cut. They talk without gestures, very quickly and
loudly, and they eat enormously. The young
vices are flat-faced, with long chins, white eye-
lashes, and fair hair. JNIany are taciturn, morose,
and dreamy. Occasionally they make jokes, but
without energy. They mostly eat without inter-
ruption.'

This is the French view, and it is natural.
Pont-Aven does not have the right atmosphere
for the Frenchman : the Bretons and the English
are supreme.

Nothing is more delightful than to spend a
summer there. You find yourself in a colony
of intelligent men, many of them very clever,
as wxll as pretty young Englisli and American
girls, and University students on ' crammhig ' tours.
Picnics and ri^•er-parties are organized by the
inimitable JNIdlle. Julia every day during the
summer, and in the evening there is always dancing
in the big salon. The hotel is full to overflowing
from garret to cellar. AVithin the last few years
JNIdlle. Julia has opened another hotel at Porte
JManec, by the sea, to which the visitors may
transfer themselves whenever they choose, going
eitlier by ri\ cr or by IMdlle. Julia's own omnibus.

PONT-AVEN 157

It is built on the same lines as IMmc. Bernhardt 's
house at Belle Isle, and is situated on a breezy
promontory.

The river lies between Pont-Aven and Porte
ISIanec, which is at the mouth of the sea. How
beautiful this river is — the dear old browny-gi-ay,
moleskin-coloured river, edged with gi-eat rocks
on which the seaweed clings ! On the banks are
stretches of gray-green grass bordered by holly-
bushes. The scenery changes constantly. Some-
times it is rugged and rocky, now sloping up, now
down, now covered with green gorse or a sprinkling
of bushes, now with a wilderness of trees. Here
and there you will see a cleft in the mountain-
side, a little leafy dell which one might fancy the
abode of fairies. Silver streams trickle musically
over the bare brown rocks, and large red toadstools
grow in profusion, the silver cobwebs sparkling with
dew in the gorse.

It is delightful in the marvellous autumn
weather to take the narrow river-path winding
in and out of the very twisty Aven, and wander
onwards to your heart's content, with the steep
hillside at the back of you and the river running
at your feet. You feel as if you could walk on for
ever over this mountainous ground, where the

158 BIUITANY

heather grows in great purple bunches among
huge granite rocks, which, they say, were placed
there by the Druids. Down below flows the river
— a mere silver ribbon now, in wastes of pinky-
purple mud, for it is ebb tide ; and now and then
you see the battered hulk of a boat lying on its
side in the mud. On the hill are lines of fir-trees
standing black and straight against the horizon.

Night falls in a bluish haze on the hills and on
the river, confusing the outline of things. At the
foot of the mountains it is almost dark. Through
the open windows and doors of the cottages as
one passes one can see groups round the tables
under the yellow Hght of candles. One smells the
good soup which is cooking ; the noise of spoons
and plates mingles with the voices of the people.
Pewter and brass gleam from the walls. It is a
picture worthy of Rembrandt. The end of the
room is hidden in smoky shadow, now and then
lit up by a flame escaping from the fireplace, show-
ing an old woman knitting in the ingle-nook, and
an old white-haired peasant drinking cider out of a
blue mug. It is strange to think of these people
living in their humble homes year after year — a
happy little people who have no history.

Not far from Pont-Aven is the ruined chateau of

THE BRIDGE, PONT-AVEN

PONT- A YEN 159

Riistephan. One approaches it through a wood of
silver birches, under great old trees ; cherry-trees
and apple-trees remain in what must once have
been a flourishing orchard. The castle itself has
fallen to decay. The wall which joined the two
towers has broken down, and the steps of the grand
spiral staircase, up which we used to climb, have
crumbled ; only the main column, built of granite
sparkling with silver particles, whicli will not fall
for many a day, stands stout and sturdy. One of
the stately old doorways remains ; but it is only that
which leads to the castle keep — the main entrance
must have fallen with the walls centuries agfo.
Bits of the old dining-hall are still to be seen —
a huge fireplace, arch-shaped, and a little shrine-
like stone erection in the wall, worn smooth in
parts ; one can imagine that it was once a sink for
washing dishes in.

It is a drowsy morning ; the sun shines hotly on
the back of the neck ; and as one sits on a mound
of earth in the middle of what was once the dining-
hall, one cannot resist dreaming of the romantic
history of Genevieve de Rustephan, the beautiful
lady who lived here long ago. Up in one of the
gi'eat rounded towers spotted with orange lichen
and encircled with ivy is a room which must have

160 BRITTANY

been her bedchamber. An ancient chimney-stack
rears itself tall and stately, and where once gray
smoke curled and wreathed, proceeding from the
well-regulated kitchen, long feathery gi-asses grow.
All round the castle, in what must have been the
pleasure-gardens, the smooth la^^^ls and the bowl-
ing-green, my lady's rose-garden, etc., are now
mounds of earth, covered with straggling gi-ass,
bracken, and blackberry-bushes, and loose typical
Breton stone walls enclosing fields. Horrible to
relate, in the lordly dining-hall, where once the
dainty Genevieve sat, is a fat pig, nozzling in the
earth.

Naturally, Rustephan is haunted. If anyone
were brave enough to penetrate the large hall
towards midnight (so the peasants say), a terrible
spectacle would be met — a bier covered with a
white cloth carried by priests bearing lighted
tapers. On clear moonlight nights, say the
ancients, on the crumbling old terrace, a beautiful
girl is to be seen, pale-faced, and dressed in green
satin flowered with gold, singing sad songs, sobbing
and crying. On one occasion the peasants were
dancing on the green turf in front of the towers,
and in the middle of the most animated part of the
feast there appeared behind the crossbars of a

THE VILLAGE FORGE, PONT-AVEN

PONT-AVEN 161

window an old priest with shaven head and eyes
as briUiant as diamonds. Terrified, the men and
the girls fled, and never again danced in these
haunted regions.

One feels miserable on leaving Pont-Aven. It
seems as if you had been in a quiet and beautiful
backwater for a time, and were suddenly going out
into the glare and the noise and tlie flaunting airs
of a fashionable regatta. I can describe the sensa-
tion in no other way. There is something in the
air of Pont-Aven that makes it like no other place
in the world.

QUIMPERLE.

21—2

THE VILLAGE COBBLER

W/g^i

TSJn^HiPT^PIa

CHAPTER XIII

QUIMPERLl^

QuiMPERLi; is known as the Arcadia of Basse
Bretagne, and certainly the name is well deserved.
I have never seen a town so full of trees and
trailing plants and gardens. Every wall is green
with moss and gay with masses of convolvulus and
nasturtium. Flowers grow rampant in Quimperle,
and overrun their boundaries. Every window-sill
has its row of pink ivy-leafed geraniums, climbing
down and over the gray stone wall beneath ; every
wall has its wreaths of trailing flowers.

There are flights of steps everywhere — favourite
caprices of the primitive architects — divided in the
middle by iron railings. Up these steps all the
housewives must go to reach the market. On
either side the houses crowd, one above the other,
with their steep garden walls, sometimes intercepted
by iron gateways, and sometimes covered by blood-
red leaves and yellowing ^•ines. Some are houses
of the Middle Ages, and some of the Renais-

165

166 BRITTANY

sance period, with sculptured porches and panes of
bottle-glass ; a few have terraces at the end of the
gardens, over which clematis climbs. Here and
there the sun lights up a corner of a fa9ade, or
shines on the emerald leaves, making them scintil-
late. Down the steps a girl in white- winged cap
and snowy apron, with pink ribbon at her neck,
carrying a large black two-handled basket, is coming
on her way from market.

Having scaled this long flight of steps, you find
yourself face to face with the old Gothic church of
St. JSIichael, a grayish -pink buikiing with one
great square tower and four turrets. The porch is
sculptured in a rich profusion of graceful details.
Here and there yellow moss grows, and there are
clusters of fern in the niches. Inside, the church
was suffused with a purple liglit shed by the sun
through the stained-glass windows ; the ceiling was
of infinite blue. Everything was transformed by
the strange purple light. The beautiful carving
round the walls, the host of straight - backed
praying-chairs, and even the green curtain of the
confessional boxes, were changed to royal purple.
Only the altar, with its snowy-white cloths and red
and gold ornaments, retained its colour. .lutting
forth from the church of St. Michael are arms or

QUlMrERLE 1G7

branches connecting it with the village, as if it
were some mother bird protecting the young ones
beneath her wings. Under these wings the houses
of the village cluster.

It is five o'clock in the afternoon, the sociable
liour, when people sit outside their cottage doors,
knitting, gossiping, watching the children play, and
eating the evening meal. Most of the children,
who are many, are very nearly of the same age.
Clusters of fair curly heads are seen in the road.
The youngest, the baby, is generally held by some
old woman, probably the grandmother, who has
a shriAxlled yellow face — a very tender guardian.

Over the doorways of the shops hang branches
of withered mistletoe. Through the long low
windows, which have broad sills, you catch a glimpse
of rows and rows of bottles. These are wine-shops
— no rarities in a Breton village. Another shop
evidently belonged to the church at one time. It
still possesses a rounded ecclesiastical doorway,
built of solid blocks of stone, and the walls, which
were white originally, are stained green with age.
The windows, as high as your waist from the
ground, have broad stone sills, on which are
arranged carrots and onions, coloured sweets in
bottles, and packets of tobacco. This shop evi-

168 BRITrANY

dently supplies everything that a human being can
desire. Above it you read : ' Cafe on sert a boire
et a manger.'

While we were in Quimperle there were two
musicians making a round of the town. One, with a
swarthy face, was blind, and sang a weird song in a
minor key, beating a triangle. The other, who
looked an Italian, was raggedly dressed in an old fur
coat and a faded felt hat. His musical performance
was a veritable gymnastic feat. In his hands he held
a large concertina, which he played most cleverly ;
at his back was a drum with automatic sticks and
clappers, which he worked with his feet. It was
the kind of music one hears at fairs. Wherever
we went we heard it, sometimes so near that we
could catch the tune, sometimes at a distance,
when only the dull boom of the drum was dis-
tinguishable.

Whenever I think of Quimperle this strange
music and the spectacle of those two picturesque
figures come back to memory. The men are
well known in Brittany. They spend their lives
travelling from place to place, earning a hard
livelihood. \Mien I was at school in Quimper I
used to hear the same tune played by the same men
outside the convent walls.

THE BLIND PIPER

i:.

QUIMPERLE 169

Quimperle is a sleepy place, changing very little
with the years. In spite of the up-to-date railway-
station, moss still grows betw^een the pavings of the
streets. The houses have still their picturesque
wooden gables ; the gardens are laden with fruit-
trees ; the hills are rich in colour. Flow^ers that love
the damp grow luxuriantly. It is an arcadian
country. The place is hostile to work. In this
tranquil town, ahnost voluptuous in its richness of
colour and balminess of atmosphere, you lose your-
self in laziness. There is not a discordant note,
nothing to shock the eye or grate on the senses.
Far from the noise of Paris, the stuffy air of the
boulevards, the never-ending rattle of the fiacres,
and the rasping cries of the camelot, you forget the
seething world outside.

In the Rue du Chateau, the aristocratic quarter,
are many spacious domains with doorways sur-
mounted by coats of arms and coronets. Most of
them have closed shutters, their masters having dis-
appeared, alienated for ever by the Revolution ; but
a few great families have returned to their homes.
One sees many women about the church, grave and
sad and prayerful, who still wear black, clinging to
God, the saints, and the priests, as to the only
living souvenirs of better times.

170 BRITTANY

In no other place in Finistere was the Revolution
so sudden and so terrible as in this little town, and
nowhere were the nobility so many and powerful.
This old Rue du Chateau must have rung with
furious cries on the day when the federators re-
turned from the fete of the Champs de Mars after
the abolition of all titles and the people took the
law into their own hands. The Bretons are slow
to anger ; but when roused they are extremely
violent. They not only attacked tlie living — the
nobles in their seignorial hotels — but also they
went to the tombs and mutilated the dead with
sabre cuts.

In Quimperle the painter finds pictures at every
turn. For example, there are clear sinuous streams
crossed by many bridges, not unlike by-canals in
Venice. As you look up the river the bank is
a jumble of sloping roofs, protruding balconies,
single-arched bridges, trees, and clumps of greenery.
The houses on either side, gray and turreted, bathe
their foundations in the stream. Some have steep
garden walls, velvety with green and yellow moss
and lichen ; others have terraces and jutting stone
balconies, almost smothered by trailing vines and
clematis, drooping over the gray water. The
stream is very shallow, showing clearly the brown

QUIMPERLE 171

and golden bed ; and on low stone benches at the
edge girls in little close white caps and blue aprons
are busily washing with bare round arms. A pretty
little maid with jet-black hair is cleaning some
pink stuff on a great slab of stone, against a back-
ground of gray wall over which convolvulus and
nasturtium are trailing ; a string of white linen
is suspended above her head. This is a delightful
picture. It is a gray day, sunless ; but the gray
is luminous, and the reflections in the water are
clear.

22—2

AURAY

AT THE FOIRE

.^^->

-A^_r

CHAPTER XIV

AURAY

When we arrived in Auray it was market-day,
and chatter filled the streets. There were avenues
of women ranged along the pavement, their round
wicker baskets full of lettuce, cabbages, carrots,
turnips, chestnuts, pears, and what not — women in
white flimsy caps, coloured cross-over shawls, and
sombre black dresses. Their aprons were of many
colours — reds, mauves, blues, maroons, and greens
— and the wares also were of various hues. All the
women knit between the intervals of selling, and
even during the discussion of a bargain, for a pur-
chase in Brittany is no small matter in the opinion of
housewives, and engenders a great deal of conversa-
tion. All the feminine world of Auray seemed to
have sallied forth that morning. Processions of
them passed down the avenue of market women,
most of them peasants in the cap of Auray, with
snuff-coloured, large-bibbed aprons, carrying bulky
black baskets with double handles.

175

176 BRUT ANY

Now and then one saw a Frenchwoman walking
tln'ough the avenue of vegetables, just as good at
bargaining, just as keen-eyed and sharp-tongued, as
her humbler sisters. Sometimes she was pretty,
walking with an easy swinging gait, her baby on
one arm, her basket on the other, in a short trim
skirt and altogether neatly dressed. More often
she was dressed in unbecoming colours, her hair
untidily arranged, her skirt trailing in the mud —
a striking contrast to the well-to-do young Breton
matron, with neatly braided black hair and clean
rosy face, her white-winged lawn cap floating in
the breeze, her red shawl neatly crossed over her
lace-trimmed corsage. In her black velvet-braided
skirt and wooden sabots the Breton is a dainty
little figure, her only lapse into frivolity consisting
of a gold chain at her neck and gold earrings.

Vegetables do not engender much conversation
in a Breton market : they are served out and paid
for very calmly. It is over the skeins of coloured
wool, silks, and laces, that there is much bargaining.
Round these stalls you will see girls and old hags
face to face, and almost nose to nose, their arms
crossed, speaking rapidly in shrill voices.

Just after walking past rows of very ordinary
houses, suddenly you will come across a really fine

MID-DAY

AURAY 177

old mansion, dating from the seventeenth century,
white-faced, with ancient black beams, gables, and
diamond panes. Then, just as you think that you
have exhausted the resources of the town, and turn
down a moss-grown alley homewards, you find
yourself face to face with another town, typically
Breton, white-faced and gray-roofed, clustering
round a church and surrounded by old moss-gro'SMi
walls. This little town is situated far down in a
valley, into which you descend by a sloping green
path. We sat on a stone bench above, and watched
the people as they passed before us. There were
bare-legged school-children in their black pinafores
and red beres, hurrying home to dejeuner^ swinging
their satchels ; and beggars, ragged and dirty, hold-
ing towards us tin cups and greasy caps, with many
groans and whines. One man held a baby on his
arm, and in the other hand a loaf of bread. The
baby's face was dirty and covered with sores ; but
its hair was golden and curly, and the sight of that
fair sweet head nodding over the father's shoulder
as they went down the hill made one's heart ache.
It was terrible to think that an innocent child
could be so put out of touch with decent humanity.
To reacli this little town one had to cross a
sluggish river by a pretty gray stone bridge.

178 BRITTANY

Some of the houses were quaint and picturesque,
mostly with two stories, one projecting over
the other, and low windows with broad sills,
bricked down to the ground, on which were
arranged pots of fuchsias, pink and white gera-
niums, and red-brown begonias. Nearly every
house had its broad stone stoop, or settle, on which
the various families sat in the warm afternoon
drinking bowls of soup and eating tartines de
heurre.

It is a notably provincial little town, full of
flowers and green trees, and dark, narrow streets,
across which hang audaciously strings of drying
linen. All the children of the community appeared
to be out and about — some skipping, others play-
ing at peg-tops, and others merely sucking their
fingers and their pinafores in the way that children
have. One sweet child in a red pinafore, her hair
plaited into four little tails tied with red ribbon,
clasped a slice of bread-and-butter (butter side
inwards, of course) to her chest, and was care-
lessly peeling an apple with a long knife at the
same time, in such a way as to make my heart
leap.

A happy wedding - party were swinging gaily
along the quay arm m arm, singing some rollicking

AURAY 179

Breton chanson, and all rather affected by their
visits to the various debits de boissons. There were
two men and two women — the men fair and
bearded, wearing peaked caps ; the women in their
best lace coifs and smartest aprons. As they
passed everyone turned and pointed and laughed.
It was probably a three days' wedding.

A mite of a girl walking gingerly along the
street carried a bottle of ink ever so carefully,
biting her lips in her anxiety to hold it steadily.
Round her neck, on a sky-blue ribbon, hung a
gorgeous silver cross, testifying to good behaviour
during the week. Alack ! a tragedy was in store.
The steps leading to the doorway of her home were
steep, and the small person's legs were short and
fat. She tripped and fell, and the ink was spilled
— a large, indelible, angry black spot on the clean
white step. Fearfully and pale-faced, the little
maid looked anxiously about her, and strove to
put the ink back again by means of a dry stick,
staining fingers and pinafore the more. It was of
no a rail. Her mother had seen her. Out she
rushed, a pleasant-faced woman in a wliite lace
cap, now wearing a ferocious expression.

' Monster that thou art !' sho cried, lifting the
tearful, ink-bespattered child by the armpits, and

23—2

180 BRllTANY

throwing her roughly indoors, whence piteous
sounds of sobbing and waiHng ensued.

The child's heart was broken ; the silver cross had
lost its charm ; and the sun had left the heavens.
The mother, busily bending over her sewing-
machine, looked up at us through the window,
and smiled understandingly.

A LITTLE MOTHER

BELLE ^SLE

CHAPTER XV

BEI.LE ISLE

As a rule, a country becomes more interesting as
one draws near to the sea ; the colouring is more
beautiful and the people are more picturesque. It
is strange that the salt air should have such a
mellowing effect upon a town and its inhabitants ;
but there is no doubt that it has. This seemed
especially remarkable to us, coming straight from
Carnac, that flat, gray -treeless country where the
people arc sad and stolid, and one's only interest is
in the dolmens and menhirs scattered over the
landscape — strange blocks of stone about w^iich
one knows little, but imagines much.

When you come from a country such as this,
you cannot but be struck by the warmth and
wealth of colouring which the sea imparts to
everything in its vicinity. Even the men and
women grouped in knots on the pier were more
picturesque, with their sun-bleached, tawny, red-
gold hair, and their blue eyes, than the people

183

184 BRITTANY

of Carnac. The men were handsome fellows —
some in brown and orange clothing, toned and
stained by the sea ; others in deep-blue much be-
patched coats and yellow oilskin trousers. Their
complexions had a healthy reddish tinge — a
warmth of hue such as one rarely sees in Brittany.

The colouring of the Bay of Quiberon on this
particular afternoon was a tender pale mother-of-
pearl. The sky was for the most part a broad, fair
expanse of gray, with, just where the sun was
setting, intervals of eggshell blue and palest lemon-
yellows breaking through the drab ; the sands were
silvery ; the low-lying ground was a dim gold ; the
water was gray, with purple and lemon-yellow
reflections. The whole scene was broad and fair.
The people on the pier and the boats on the water
formed notes of luscious colour. The fishing-boats
at anchor were of a brilliant green, with vermilion
and orange sails and nets a gauzy blue. Ahead,
on the brown rocks, although it was the calmest
and best of weather, white waves were breaking
and sending foam and spray high into the air.
There was everywhere a fresh smell of salt.

We were anxious to go across to Belle Isle that
night, and took tickets for a small, evil-smelling
boat, the cargo of which was mostly soldiers. It

CURIOSITY

:|i

BELLE ISLE 185

was rather a rough crossing, and we lay in the
stuffy cabin longing to go on deck to see the
sunset, which, by glimpses through the portholes,
we could tell to be painting sea and sky in tones of
flame. At last the spirit conquered the flesh, and,
worried with the constant opening and shutting of
doors by the noisy steward, we ^^ent on deck. A
fine sight awaited us. From pearly grays and
tender tones we had emerged into the fiery
glories of a sunset sky. l^ehind us lay the dark
gray-blue sea and the darker sky, flecked by pale
pink clouds. Before us, the sun was shooting
forth broad streaks of orange and vermilion on a
ground of ^^enetian blue. Towards the horizon the
colouring paled to tender pinks and lemon-yellows.
As the little steamer ploughed on. Belle Isle rose
into sight, a dark purple streak with tracts of
lemon-gold and rosy clouds. The nearer we drew
the lower sank the sun, until at last it set redly
behind the island, picking out every point and
promontory and every pine standing stiff against
the sky.

Each moment the island loomed larger and
darker, orange light shining out here and there
in the mass. We were astonished by its size, for I
had always imagined Belle Isle as being a miniature

186 BRITTANY

place belonging entirely to Mme. Bernhardt.
The entrance to the bay was narrow, and lay
between two piers, with lights on either end ; and
it was a strange sensation leaving the grays and
blues and purples, the silvery moonlight, and the
tall-masted boats behind us, and emerging into
this warmth and wealth of colouring. A wonderful
orange and red light shone behind the dark mass of
the island, turning the water of the bay to molten
gold and glorifying the red-sailed fishing-boats at
anchor. As we drew near the shore, piercing
shrieks came from the funnel. There appeared to
be some difficulty about landing. Many directions
were shouted by the captain and repeated by a shrill-
voiced boy before we were allowed to step on shore
over a precarious plank. Once landed, we were
met by a brown-faced, sturdy woman, who picked
up our trunks and shouldered them as if they were
feather-weights for a distance of half a mile or so.
She led the way to the hotel.

Next morning was dismal ; but, as we had only
twenty-four hours to spend in Belle Isle, we
hired a carriage to take us to the home of
Mme. Bernhardt, and faced the weather. The
sky was gray ; the country flat and bare, though
interesting in a melancholy fashion. The scenery

BELLE ISLE 187

consisted of mounds of brown overturned earth laid
in regular rows in the fields, scrubby ground half-
overgrown by gorse, clusters of dark pines, and a
dreary windmill here and there. Now and then,
by way of incident, we passed a gi'oup of white
houses, surrounded by sad-coloured haystacks, and
a few darkly-clad figures hurrying over the fields
with umbrellas up, on their way to church. The
Breton peasants are so pious that, no matter
how far away from a town or village they may
live, they attend Mass at least once on Sunday.
A small procession passed us on the road — young
men in their best black broadcloth suits, and
girls in bright shawls and velvet-bound petticoats.
This was a christening procession — at least, we
imagined it to be so ; for one of the girls carried
a long white bundle under an umbrella. Bretons
are christened within twenty-four hours of birth.

The home of Mme. Bernhardt is a square
fortress-like building, shut up during the autumn,
with a beautifully-designed terrace garden. It is
situated on a breezy promontory, and the great
actress is in sole possession of a little bay wherein
the sea flows smoothly and greenly on the yellow
sands, and the massive purple rocks loom threaten-
ingly on either side with many a craggy peak.

24—2

188 BRIITANY

Her dogs, large Danish boarhounds, rushed out,
barking furiously, at our approach ; her sheep and
some small ponies were grazing on the scanty
grass.

Our driver was taciturn. He seemed to be
tuned into accord with the desolate day, and would
vouchsafe no more than a grudging ' Oui ' or ' Non '
to our many questions, refusing point-blank to tell us
to what places he intended driving us. At length
he stopped the carriage on a cliff almost at the edge
of a precipice. Thoughts that he was perhaps
insane ran through my mind, and I stepped out
hurriedly ; but his intention was only to show us
some cavern below. IMother preferred to remain
above-ground ; but, led by the driver, 1 went down
some steps cut in the solid rock, rather slippery
and steep, with on one side a sheer wall of rock,
and the ocean on the other. The rock was dark
green and flaky, with here and there veins of
glistening pink and white mica. Lower and lower
we descended, until it seemed as if we were
stepping straight into the sea, which foamed
against the great rocks, barring the entrance to
the cavern.

The cavern itself was like a colossal railway-arch
towering hundreds of feet overhead ; and against

A SOLITARY MEAL

BELLE ISLE 189

this and the rocks at the entrance the sea beat
with much noise and splash, falhng again with a
groan in a mass of spray. Inside the cavern the
tumult was deafening ; but never have I seen
anything more beautiful than those waves creaming
and foaming over the green rocks, the blood-red
walls of the cave rising sheer above, flecked with
glistening mica. It was a contrast with the tame,
flat, sad scenery over which we had been driving all
the morning. This was Nature at her biggest and
best, belittling everything one had ever seen or
was likely to see, making one feel small and insig-
nificant.

By-and-by we drove to a village away down in a
hollow, a typical Breton fishing-village with yellow
and white-faced auberges, and rows of boats
moored to the quay, their nets and sails hauled
down on this great day of the week, the Sabbath.
As there was no hotel in the place, we entered a
clean-looking auberge and asked for luncheon.
The kitchen led out of the little salle a manger,
and, as the door was left wide open, we could watch
the preparation of our food. We were to have a
very good soup ; we saw the master of the house
bringing in freshly-caught fish, which were grilled
at the open fireplace, and fresh sardines ; and

190 BRITTANY

we heard our cliicken frizzling on the spit. We
saw the coffee-beans being roasted, and we were
given the most exquisite pears and apples. Small
matter that our room was shared by noisy soldiers,
and that Adolphus (as we had named our driver)
entered and drank before our very eyes more
cognac than was good for him or reasonable on our
biU.

Sunday afternoon in Belle Isle is a fashionable
time. Between three and four people go down to
the quay, clattering over the cobble stones in their
best black sabots, to watch the steamers come in
from Quiberon. You see girls in fresh white caps
and neat black dresses, spruce soldiers, ladies a hi
mode in extravagant headgear and loud plaid or
check dresses. On the quay they buy hot chest-
nuts. P>om our hotel w^e could watch the people
as they passed, and the shopkeepers sitting and
gossiping outside their doors. Opposite us was a
souvenir shop, on the steps of which sat the
proprietor with his boy. Very proud he was of
the child — quite an ordinary spoiled child, much
dressed up. The father followed the boy with his
eyes wherever he went. He pretended to scold
him for not getting out of the way when people
passed, to attract their attention to the child. He

BELLE ISLE 191

greeted every remark with peals of laughter, and
repeated the witticisms to his friend the butcher
next door, who did not seem to appreciate them.
Every now and then he would glance over to
see if the butcher were amused. French people,
especially Bretons, are devoted to their children.

I was much amused in watching the little bonne
at the hotel who carried our luggage the night
before. She was quaint, compact, sturdy. She
would carry a huge valise on her shoulder, or
sometimes one in either hand. She ordered her
husband about. She dressed her child in a shining
black hat, cleaned its face with her pocket-
handkerchief, straightened its pinafore, and sent
it en promenade with papa, while she herself
stumped off to carry more luggage. There was
apparently no end to her strength. On her way
indoors she paused on the step and cast a loving
crlance over her shoulder at the back \dew of her

husband in his neatly-patched blue blouse and the
little child in the black sarrau walking sedately
down the road. She seemed so proud of the pair
that we could not resist asking the woman if the
child were hers, just to see the glad smile which lit
up her face as she answered, ' Oui, mesdames !' I
have often noticed how lenient Breton women are

192 BRITTANY

to their cliildren. They will speak in a big voice
and frown, and a child imagines that Mother is in
a towering rage ; but you will see her turn round
the next moment and smile at the bystander. If
children only knew their power, how little influence
parents would have over them !

The French difF.r from the British in the matter
of emotion. On the steamer from Belle Isle to
Quiberon there were some soldiers, about to travel
with us, who were being seen off by four or five
others standing on the quay. Slouching, un-
military figures they looked, with baggy red
trousers tied up at the bottoms, faded blue coats,
and postmen-shaped hats, yellow, red, or blue pom-
pom on top. One of the men on shore was a
special friend of a soldier who was leaving. I was
on tenter-hooks lest he should embrace him ; he
almost did so. He squeezed his hand ; he
picked fluff off his clothes ; he straightened his
hat. He repeatedly begged that his ' cher ami '
would come over on the following Sunday to
Belle Isle. Tears were very near his eyes ; he was
forced to bite his handerchief to keep them back.
When the boat moved away, and they could join
hands no longer, the soldiers blew kisses over the
water to one another. They opened their arms

IN THE BOIS D'AMOUR

,■

BELLE ISLE 193

wide, shouted affectionate messages, and called one
another by endearing terms. Altogether, they
carried on as if they were neurotic girls rather
than soldiers who had their way to make and
their country to think of.

There was one man superior to his fellows. He
held the same rank, and wore the same uniform ;
but he kept his buttons and his brass belt bright ;
he wore silk socks, and carried a gold watch under
his miUtary coat ; his face was intelligent

ST. ANNE DAURAY

25—2

CHAPTER XVI

ST. ANNE d'aURAY

Not far from the little town of Auray is the
magnificent cathedral of St. Anne D 'Auray, to
which so many thousands from all over Brittany
come annually to worship at the shrine of St. Anne.
From all parts of the country they arrive — some
on foot, others on horseback, or in strange country
carts : marquises in their carriages ; peasants plod-
ding many a weary mile in theh' wooden sabots.
Even old men and women "svill walk all through
the day and night in order to be in time for the
pardon of St. Anne.

The Breton people firmly believe that their
household cannot prosper, that their cattle and
their crops cannot thrive, that their ships are not
safe at sea, unless they have been at least once a
year to burn candles at the shrine. The wealthy
bourgeois's daughter, in her new dress, smart
apron, and Paris shoes, kneels side by side with a
ragged beggar ; the peasant farmer, with long gi-ay

197

198 BRIITANY

hair, white jacket, breeches and leather belt,
mingles his supplications with those of a noble-
man's son. All are equal here ; all have come in
the same humble, repentant spirit ; for the time
being class distinctions are swept away. Noble
and peasant crave their special boons ; each con-
fesses his sins of the past year ; all stand bare-
headed in the sunshine, humble petitioners to
St. Anne.

At the time of the pardon, July 25, the ordi-
narily quiet town is filled to overflowing. There
is a magnificent procession, all green and gold and
crimson, headed by the Bishop of Vannes. A
medley of people come from all parts to pray in
the cathedral, and to bathe in the miraculous well,
the water of which will cure any ailment,

It is said that in the seventh century St. Anne
appeared to one Nicolazic, a farmer, and com-
manded him to dig in a field near by for her image.
This having been found, she bade him erect a
chapel on the spot to her memory. Several
chapels were afterwards built, each in its turn
grander and more important, until at last the
magnificent church now standing was erected.
On the open place in front is a circle of small
covered -in stalls, where chaplets, statuettes, tall

A BRETON FARMER

ST. ANNE D'AURAY 199

wax candles, rings, and sacred ornaments of all
kinds, are sold.

Directly you appear within that circle, long
doleful cries are set up from every vendor,
announcing the various wares that he or she has
for sale. You are offered rosaries for sixpence,
and for four sous extra you can have them blessed.
A statue of the Virgin can be procured for four-
pence ; likewise the image of St. Anne. Wherever
you may go in the circle, you are pestered by
these noisy traders. There is something incon-
gruous in such sacred things being hawked about
the streets, and their various merits shrieked at you
as you pass. We went to a shop near by, where
we could look at the objects quietly and at
leisure.

The church, built of light-gray stone, is full of
the richest treasures you can imagine — gold, jewels,
precious marbles, and priceless pictures. One feels
almost surfeited by so much magnificence. Every
square inch of the walls is covered with slabs of
costly marble, on which are inscribed, in letters of
gold, thanks to St. Anne for benefits bestowed and
petitions for blessings.

Although one cannot but be touched by the
worship of St. Anne and the simple belief of the

200 BRIITANY

people in her power to cure all, to accomplish all,
one is a little upset by these costly offerings.
Nevertheless, it is a marvellous faith, this Roman
Catholic religion : the more you travel in a country
like Brittany, the more you realize it. There must
be a great power in a religion that draws people
hundreds of miles on foot, and enables them, after
hours of weary tramping, to spend a day praying
on the hard stones before the statue of a saint.

ST. MALO

CHAPTER XVII

ST. MALO

When you are nearing the coast of France all
you can see is a long narrow line, without relief,
apparently without design, without character, just
a sombre strip of horizon ; but St. Malo is always
visible. A fine needle-point breaks the uninterest-
ing Hne : it is the belfry of St. INIalo. To left
and right of the town is a cluster of islands, dark
masses of rock over which the waves foam whitely.
St. Malo is magnificently fortified. It is literally
crowned with military defences. It is a mass of
formidable fortresses, rigid angles, and severe gray
walls. It speaks of the seventeenth century, tell-
ing of a time when deeds of prowess were familiar.
The sea, which is flowing, beats furiously against
the walls of defence, protected by the trunks of
great trees planted in the sand. These gigantic
battalions stop the inrush of the water, and would
make landing more arduous to an enemy. They
have a bizarre effect when seen from the distance.

203 20—2

204 BRIITANY

The town defied all the efforts of the English to
capture her. On one occasion they laid mines as
far as the Porte of St. JNlalo ; but the Virgin,
enshrined above the gate, and ever watching over
the people, disclosed the plot by unfolding her
arms and pointing with one hand to the ground
beneath her. The Bretons dug where she pointed,
and discovered their imminent peril. Thus was the
city saved. To-day the shrine receives the highest
honours, and is adorned with the finest and sweetest
flowers.

For one reason at least St. Malo is unique. It
is a town of some thousand inhabitants ; yet it is
still surrounded by medieeval walls. Of all the
towns in Brittany, St. Malo is the only one which
still remains narrowly enclosed within walls. It
is surrounded by the sea except for a narrow neck
of land joining the city to the mainland. This is
guarded at low tide by a large and fierce bulldog,
the image of which has been added to St. Malo's
coat of arms. Enclosed within a narrow circle of
walls, and being unable to expand, the town is
peculiar. The houses are higher than usual, and
the streets narrower. There is no waste ground in
St. Malo. Every available incli is built upon. The
sombre streets run upliill and downhill. There is

IN THE EYE OF THE SUN

rr^ /a

'^t

*i*'

ST. MALO 806

no town like St. Malo. Its quaint, tortuous streets,
of corkscrew form, culminate in the cathedral,
which, as you draw near, does not seem to be a
cathedral at all, but a strong fort. So narrow are
the streets, and so closely are they gathered round
the cathedral, that it is only when you draw away
to some distance that you can see the beautifully-
sculptured stone tower of many points.

Up and down the steep street the people clatter
in their thick-soled sabots. It is afternoon, and
most of tlie townspeople have turned out for a
walk, to gaze in the shop windows with their little
ones. The people are rather French ; and the
children, instead of being clad in the Breton cos-
tume, wear smart kilted skirts, white socks, and
shiny black sailor hats. Still, there is a subtle
difference between these people and the French.
You notice this directly you arrive. There is
something solid, something pleasant and unartificial,
about them. The women of the middle classes are
much better-looking, and they dress better ; the
men are of stronger physique, with straight, clean-
cut features and a powerful look.

Very attractive are these narrow hilly streets,
with their throngs of people and their gay little
shops where the wares are always hung outside —

206 BRITTANY

worsted shawls, scarlet and blue beres, Breton
china (decorated by stubby figures of men and
women and heraldic devices), chaplets, shrines to
the Virgin Mary, many-coloured cards, religious
and otherwise.

There are a few houses which perpetuate the
past. You are shown the house of Queen Anne,
the good Duchess Anne, a house with Gothic
windows, flanked by a tower, blackened and
strangely buffeted by the blows of time. Queen
Anne was a marvellous woman, and has left her
mark. Her memory is kept green by the lasting
good that she achieved. From town to town she
travelled during the whole of her reign, for she felt
that to rule well and wisely she must be ever in
close touch with her people. No woman was more
beloved by the populace. Everywhere she went
she was feted and adored. She ruled her province
with a rod of iron ; yet she showed herself to be in
many ways wonderfully feminine. Nothing could
have been finer than the act of uniting Brittany
with France by giving up her crown to France
and remaining only the Duchess Anne. In almost
every town in Brittany there is a Queen Anne
House, a house which the good Queen either built
herself or stayed in. Everywhere she went she

SUNDAY

^^^^

ST. MALO 207

constructed something — a church, a chapel, an

oratory, a calvaire, a house, a tomb — by which she

was to be remembered. There is, for example,

the famous tower which she built, in spite of all

malcontents, not so much in order to add to the

defences of St. INIalo as to rebuke the people

for their turbulence and rebellion. Her words

concerning it ring through the ages, and will never

be forgotten :

' Quic en groigneir

Aiiisy ser

Cest mon playsir.'

Ever since the tower has gone by the name of
' Quiquengroigne.'

There are three names, three figures, of which
St. Malo is proud ; the birthplaces are pointed
out to the stranger fondly. One is that of the
Duchess Anne ; another that of Duguay-Trouin ;
last, but not least, we have Chateaubriand. Of the
three, perhaps the picturesque figure of Duguay-
Trouin charms one most. From my earliest days
I have loved stories of the gallant sailor, whose
adventures and mishaps are as fascinating as those
of Sinbad. I have always pictured him as a
heroic figure on the bridge of a vessel, wearing
a powdered wig, a lace scarf, and the dress of the

208 BRITTANY

period, winning victory after victory, and shattering
fleets. It is disappointing to realize that this hero
Uved in the Rue Jean de Chatillon, in a three-
storied, time-worn house with projecting windows,
lozenge-paned. Of Chateaubriand I know Httle ;
but his birthplace is in St. JNIalo, for all who come
to see.

What a revelation it is, after winding up the
narrow, steep streets of St. Malo, suddenly to
behold, framed in an archway of tlie old mediaeval
walls, the sea ! There is a greeny-blue haze so
vast that it is difficult to trace where the sea ends
and the sky begins. The beach is of a pale yellow-
brown where the waves have left it, and pink as it
meets the water. At a little distance is an island
of russet-brown rocks, half-covered with seaweed ;
at the base is a circle of tawny sand, and at the
summit yellow-green grass is growing.

MONT ST. MICHEL

THE CRADLE

CHAPTER XVIII

MONT ST. MICHEL

The road to INIont St. INIichel is colourless and
dreary. On either side are flat gray marshes, with
little patches of scrubby grass. Here and there a
few sheep are grazing. How the poor beasts can
find anything to eat at all on such barren land is a
marvel. Gradually the scenery becomes drearier,
until at last you are driving on a narrow cause-
way, with a river on one side and a wilderness of
treacherous sand on the other.

Suddenly, on turning a corner, you come within
view of INIont St. JNIichel. No matter how well
prepared you may be for the apparition, no matter
what descriptions you may have read or heard
beforehand, when you see that three-cornered mass
of stone rising from out the vast wilderness of sand,
you cannot but be astonished and overwhelmed.
You are tempted to attribute this bizarre achieve-
ment to the hand of the magician. It is uncanny.

Just now it is low tide, and the JNIount lies in the

211 27 — 2

21^ BRITTAiNY

midst of an immense moving plain, on which three
rivers twist, like narrow threads intersecting it —
Le Conesnon, La S^e, and La Seline. Several
dark islands lie here and there unco\'ered, and
groups of small boats are left high and dry. It is
fascinating to w^atch the sea coming up, appearing
like a circle on the horizon, and slipping gently
over the sands, the circle ever narrowing, until the
islands are covered once more, the boats float at
anchor, and the waves precipitate themselves with
a loud booming sound, heard for miles round«
against the double walls that protect the sacred
JNIount.

JNIany are the praises that have been sung of
JMont St. Michel by poets and artists, by his-
torians and architects. She has been called ' A
poem in stone,' ' Le palais des angles,' ' An
inspiration of the Divine,' ' La cit^ des livres,'
' Le boulevard de la France,' ' The sacred mount,'
etc. Normandy and Brittany dispute her. She is
in the possession of either, as you will.

JMont St. Michel is not unlike Gibraltar. As
you come suddenly upon the place, rising from out
the misty grayish-yellow, low-lying marshes, it
appears to be a dark three-cornered mass, sur-
rounded by stout brownish battlemented walls,

SOUPE MAIGRE

MONT ST. MICHEL 213

flanked by rounded turrets, against a background
of blue sky. At the base of the Mount lies the
city, the houses built steeply one above the other,
some with brownish lichen-covered roofs, others of
modern slate. Above the city is the monastery —
brown walls, angry and formidable, rising steeply,
with many windows and huge buttresses. Beyond,
on the topmost point, is the grand basilica conse-
crated to the archangel, the greenish light of
whose windows you can see clearly. Above all
rises a tall gray spire culminating in a golden
figure.

There is only one entrance to Mont St. Michel
— over a footbridge and beneath a solid stone arch-
way, from which the figure of the Virgin in a niche
looks down. You find yourself in a narrow, steep
street, black and dark with age, and crowded with
shops and bazaars and caf^s. The town appears to
be given up to the amusement and entertainment
of visitors ; and, as St. Michael is the guardian
saint of all strangers and pilgrims, I suppose this is
appropriate. Tourists fill the streets and overflow
the hotels and cafes ; the town seems to live,
thrive, and have its being entirely for the tourists.
Outside every house hangs a sign advertising
coffee or china or curios, as the case may be, and

214 BRITTANY

so narrow is the street that the signs on either side
meet.

Your first thought on arriving is about getting
something to eat. The journey from St. Malo is
long, and, although the sun is shining and the sky-
is azure blue, the air is biting. Of course, every-
one who comes to the JNIount has heard of Mme.
Poulard. She is as distinctly an institution as the
very walls and fortresses. All know of her famous
coffee and delicious omelettes ; all have heard of
her charm. It is quite an open question whether
the people flock there in hundreds on a Sunday
morning for the sake of Mme. Poulard's
luncheon or for the attractions of JNIont St.
JNIichel itself. There she stands in the doorway
of her hotel, smiling, gracious, affable, handsome.
No one has ever seen Mme. Poulard ruffled or put
out. However many unexpected visitors may
arrive, she greets them all with a smile and
words of welcome.

We were amid a very large stream of guests ;
yet she showed us into her great roomy kitchen,
and seated us before the huge fireplace, where a
brace of chickens, steaming on a spit, were being
continually basted with butter by stout, gray-
haired M. Poulard. She found time to inquire

MONT ST. MICHEL 215

about our journey and our programme for the day,
and directed us to the various show-places of the
Mount.

There is only one street of any importance in
JMont St. Michel, dark and dim, very narrow, no
wider than a yard and a half ; a drain runs down
the middle. Here you find yourself in an absolute
wilderness of Poulard. You are puzzled by the
variety and the relations of the Poulards. Poulard
greets you everywhere, written in large black letters
on a white ground.

If you mount some steps and turn a corner
suddenly, Poulard frere greets you ; if you go for
a harmless walk on the ramparts, the renowned
coffee of Poulard veuve hits you in the face. Each
one strives to be the right and only Poulard. You
struggle to detach yourselves from these Poulards.
You go through a fine mediaeval archway, past
shops where valueless, foolish curios are for sale ;
you scramble up picturesque steps, only to be told
once more in glaring letters that poulard spells
Poulard.

A very picturesque street is the main thorough-
fare of Mont St. Michel, mounting higher and
higher, v^dth tall gray-stone and wooden houses on
either side, the roofs of which often meet overhead.

216 BRITTANY

Each window has its pots of geraniums and its
show of curios and useless baubles. Fish-baskets
hang on either side of the doors. Some of the
houses have terrace gardens, small bits of level
places cut into the rock, where roses grow and
trailing clematis. Ivy mainly runs riot over every
stone and rock and available wall. The houses
are built into the solid rock one above another, and
many of them retain their air of the fourteenth or
the fifteenth century.

You pass a church of Jeanne d'Arc. A bronze
statue of the saint stands outside the door. One
always goes upwards in JNIont St. Michel, seeing
the dark purplish-pink mass of the grand old
church above you, with its many spires of sculptured
stone. Stone steps lead to the ramparts. Here
you can lean over the balustrade and look down
upon the waste of sand surrounding Mont St.
Michel. All is absolutely calm and noiseless.
Immediately below is the town, its clusters of
new gray-slate roofs mingling with those covered
in yellow lichen and gi-een moss ; also the church of
the village, looking like a child's plaything perched
on the mountain-side. Beyond and all around
lies a sad, monotonous stretch of pearl-gray sand,
with only a darkish, narrow strip of land between

DEJEUNER

MONT ST. MICHEL 217

it and the leaden sky — the coast of Normandy.
Sea-birds passing over the country give forth a
doleful wail. The only signs of humanity at all
in the immensity of this great plain are some little
black specks — men and women searching for shell-
fish, delving in the sand and trying to earn a
livelihood in the forbidding waste.

The melancholy of the place is terrible. I
have seen people of the gayest-hearted natures
lean over that parapet and gaze ahead for hours.
This great gray plain has a strange attraction. It
draws out all that is sad and serious from the very
depths of you, forcing you to think deeply, moodily.
Joyous thoughts are impossible. At first you
imagine that the scenery is colourless ; but as you
stand and watch for some time, you discover that
it is full of colour. There are pearly gi-eens and
yellows and mauves, and a kind of phosphorescent
slime left by the tide, glistening with all the hues
of the rainbow.

Terribly dangerous are these shifting sands. In
attempting to cross them you need an experienced
guide. The sea mounts very quickly, and mists
overtake you unexpectedly. INIany assailants of
the rock have been swallowed in the treacherous
sands.

218 BRITTANY

Being on this great height reminded me of a
legend I had heard of the sculptor Gautier, a man
of genius, who was shut up in the Abbey of Mont
St. Michel and carved stones to keep himself from
going mad — you can see these in the abbey to this
day. For some slight reason Fran9ois I. threw the
unfortunate sculptor into the black cachot of the
Mount, and there he was left in solitude, to die by
degrees. His hair became quite white, and hung
long over his shoulders ; his cheeks were haggard ;
he grew to look like a ghost. His youth could no
longer fight against the despair overhanging him ;
his miseries were too great for him to bear ; he
became almost insane. One day, by a miracle.
Mass was held, not in the little dark chapel under
the crypts, but in the church on high, on the
topmost pinnacle of the Mount. It was a Sunday,
a fete-day. The sun shone, not feebly, as I saw it
that day, but radiantly, the windows of the church
glistening. It was blindingly beautiful. The joy
of hfe surrounded him ; the sweetness and freshness
of the spring was in the air. The irony of men
and things was too great for his poor sorrow-laden
brain. He cleared the parapet, and was dashed to
atoms below. Poor Gautier 1 It was his only
chance of escape. One realized that as one looked

A FARMHOUSE KITCHEN

MONT ST. MICHEL 219

up at those immense prison walls, black and frown-
ing, sheer and unscaleable, every window grated
and barred. What chance would a prisoner have ?
If it were possible for him to escape from the
prison itself, there would be the town below to
pass through. Only one narrow causeway joins
the island to the mainland, and all round there is
nothing but sea and sandy wastes.

I was disturbed in my reverie by a loud nasal
voice shouting, ' Par ici, messieurs et dames, s'il
vous plait.' It was the guide, and willy-nilly we
must go and make the rounds of the abbey among
a crowd of other sightseers. An old blind woman
on the abbey steps, evidently knowing that we were
English by our tread, moistened her lips and drew
in her breath in preparation for a begging whine as
we approached. We passed through a huge red
door of a glorious colour, up a noble flight of wide
steps, with hundreds of feet of wall on either side,
into a lofty chapel, falling to decay, and being
renovated in parts. It was of a ghostly greenish
stone, with fluted pillars of colossal height, ending
in stained-glass windows and a vaulted roof, about
which black- winged bats were flying. Room after
room we passed through, the guide making endless
and monotonous explanations and observations in

28—2

220 BRITTANY

a parrot-like voice, until we reached the cloister.
This is the pearl of Mont St. Michel, the wonder
of wonders. It is a huge square court. In the
middle of the quadrangle it is open to the sky, and
the sun shines through in a golden blaze. All
round are cool dim walks roofed overhead by gray
arches supported by small, graceful, rose-coloured
pillars in pairs. This is continued round the whole
length of the court. Let into the wall are long
benches of stone, to which, in olden days, the
monks came to meditate and pray. The ancient
atmosphere has been well preserved ; yet the build-
ing is so little touched by time, owing to the careful
renovations of a clever architect, that one almost
expects at any moment to see a brown-robed
monk disturbed in his meditations.

From the quiet courtyard we are taken do^Ti
into the very heart of the cohseum — into the
mysterious cells where the damp of the rock
penetrates the solid stone. How gloomy it was
down in these crypts ! Even the names of them
made one tremble — ' Galerie de FAquilon,' 'Petit
Exil,' and ' Grand Exil.' You think of Du Bourg,
tightly fettered hand and foot, being eaten alive
by rats ; of the Comte Grilles, condemned to
die of starvation, being fed by a peasant, who

MONT ST. MICHEI, 221

bravely climbed to his window ; of a hundred
gruesome tales. There is the chapel where the
last offices of the dead were performed— a cell in
which the light struggled painfully through the
narrow windows, feebly combating with the dark
night of the chamber ; and there is the narrow
stairway, in the thickness of the wall, by which the
bodies of the prisoners were taken.

We were shown the cachot and the oubliette
where the living body of the prisoner was attacked
by rats. That, however, was a simple torture
compared with the strait-jacket and the iron
cage. In the oubliette the miserable men could
clasp helpless hands, curse or pray, as the case
might be ; but in the iron cage the death agony
was prolonged.

Even now, although the poor souls took wings
long ago, the cachot and the oubliette fill you with
disgust. You feel stifled there. The atmosphere
is vitiated. Even though centuries have passed
since those terrible times, the walls seem to be still
charged with iniquity, with all the sighs exhaled,
with all the smothered cries, with all the tears,
with all the curses of impatient sufferers, with all
the prayers of saints.

It seems impossible to believe, down in the heart

222 BRIITANY

of this world of stone, in the impenetrable dark-
ness, that the architect that designed this thick and
cruel masonry constructed those airy belfries, those
balustrades of lace, those graceful arches, those
towers and minarets. It is as if he had wished to
shut up the sorrow and the maniacal cries of the
men who had lost their reason in a fair exterior,
attracting the eyes of the world to that which was
beautiful, and making it forget the misery beneath.

MARIE

-^1^^^

CHATEAU DES ROCHERS

A FARM LABOURER

CHAPTER XIX

CHATEAU DES ROCHERS

The name of Mme. Se\dgn^ rings through the ages.
Vitr^ is full of it. Inhabitants will point out, close
to the ruined ramparts, the winter palace where the
spirituelle Marquise received the Breton nobility
and sometimes the Kings of Brittany. To the
south they will show you the Chateau des Rochers,
the princely country residence maintained by this
famous woman. She was a Breton of the Bretons,
building and planting, often working in the fields
with her farm hands. She loved her Chateau des
Rochers. It was a joy to leave the town and the
gaieties of Court for the freshness of the fields and
the woods. She especially liked to be there for
the ' Triomphe du mois de Mai ' — to hear the
nightingale and the cuckoo saluting spring with
song. With Lafontaine, she found inspiration in
the fields ; but, as she preserved a solid fund of
Gaelic humour, she laughed also, and the country
did not often make her melancholy. She felt the

225 29

226 BRITTANY

sadness of autumn in her woods ; but she never
became morose. She never wearied of her garden.
She had always some new idea with regard to it —
some new phui to lure her from a letter begun or
a book opened. Before reading the memoirs of
JNIme. Sevigne it is almost impossible to realize this
side of her nature. AA^ho would have imagined that
this woman of the salons, feted in Paris, and known
everywhere, would be always longing for her country
home ? It is only when you visit the famous
Chateau des Rochers that you realize to the full
that she was a lo\'er of nature and country habits.
Wandering through the old-world garden, you find
individual touches which bring back the dainty
Marquise vividly to mind. There are the venerable
trees, under which you may wander and imagine
yourself back in the time of Louis XIV. There
are the deep and shady avenues planted by JMme.
Sevign^, and beautiful to this day. The names
come back to you as you walk — ' La Solitaire,'
* L'Infini,' ' L'honneur de ma fiUe ' — avenues in
which madame sat to see the sun setting behind
the trees. Very quiet is this garden, with its broad
shady paths, its wide spaces of green, its huge
cedars growing in the grass, and its stiff flower-beds.
There is INlme. Scvigne's sundial, on which she

A LITTLE WATER-CARRIER

CHATEAU DES ROCHERS 227

inscribed with her own hand a Latin verse. There
are the stiff rows of poplars, like Noah's Ark trees,
symmetrical, interlacing one with the other, un-
natural but dainty in design. There is her rose
garden, a roimded and terraced walk planted witli
roses. There, too, are the sunny ' Place JNIadame,'
the ' Place Coulanges,' and ' L'l^cho,' where two
people, standing on stones placed a certain distance
apart, can hear the echo plainly. This garden, with
its stiff little rows of trees, its sunny open squares
surrounded by low walls, and its stone vases over-
grown with flowers, brings back the past so vividly
that one asks one's self whether indeed INI me.
Sevigne is there no longer, and glances involuntarily
down the avenues and the by-ways, half expecting
to distinguish the rapid passage of a majestic skirt.
What a splendid life this woman of the seventeenth
century led ! She knew well how to regulate mind
and body. The routine of the day at Les Rochers
was never varied, and was designed so perfectly
that there was rarely ajar or a hitch. Slic rose at
eight, and enjoyed the freshness of the woods until
the hour for matins struck. After that there were
the ' Good-mornings ' to be said to everyone on her
estate. She must pick flowers for the table, and
read and work, ^^^lcn her son was no longer with

29—2

228 BRIITANY

her she read aloud to broaden the mind of his wife.
At five o'clock her time became her own ; and on
fine days, a lacquey following, she wandered down
the pleasjuit avenues, dreaming visions of the
future, of God and of His providence, sometimes
reading a book of devotions, sometimes a book of
history. On days of storm, when the trees dripped
and the slates fell fi*om the roof, — on days so wet
and gray and wild that you would not turn a dog
out of doors — you would suppose the INlarquise to
become morbid and miserable. Not at all. She
realized that she must kill time, and she did so
by a hundred ingenious devices. She deplored
the weather which kept her indoors, but fixed her
thoughts on the morrow. Ladies and gentlemen
often invaded her ; all the nobility came to present
tlieir compliments. They assailed her from all
sides. When she resisted them, and strove to shut (

herself away from the world, the Duke would come (

and carry her away in his carriage. J

She always longed to return to her solitude — to J

her dear Rochers, where her good priest waited, t\

at once her administrator, her man of affairs, her y

architect, and her friend. Her pride of property
was great, and she was constantly beautifying and
embellisliing her country home. Each year saw

CHATEAU DES UOCHEllS ^29

some new change. On one occasion six years
passed witliout her visiting Les Rochers. All her
trees had become big and beautiful ; some of them
were forty or fifty feet high. Her joy when she
beheld them gives one an insight into her youthful-
ness.

How young she was in some things ! She often
asked herself whence came this exuberance. She
drew caricatures of the affectations of her neigh-
bours, and the anxious inquiries of her friends
as to her happiness during her voluntary exile
amused her immensely. In a letter written to her
daughter she said :

' I laugh sometimes at what they call ** spending

the winter in the woods." INIme. de C said

to me the other day, " I^eave your damp Rochers."
1 answered her, " Damp yourself — it is your country
that is damp ; but we are on a height." It is as
though I said. Your damp Montmartre. These
woods are at present penetrated by the sun when-
ever it shines. On the Place Madame when the
sun is at its height, and at the end of the great
avenue when the sun is setting, it is marvellous.
When it rains there is a good room with my
people here, who do not trouble me. I do what
I want, and when there is no one here we are still

230 BRIITANY

better off, for we read with a pleasure which we
prefer above everything.'

The prospect of spending a winter at Les Rochers
did not frigliten her in the least. She wrote to her
daughter, saying, ' JNIy purpose to spend the winter
at Les Rochers frightens you. Alas ! my daughter,
it is the sweetest thing in the world.'

Mme. Sevigne was always thinking of her
daughter, and of Provence, where she lived. Her
heart went out to her daughter. Everything about
Les Rochers helped her to remember her beloved
child. Even the country itself seemed to bring
back memories, for the nights of July were so
perfumed with orange-blossoms that one might
imagine one's self to be really in Provence.
JNlme. Sevigne wrote in a letter to one of her
friends :

' I have established a home in the most beautiful
place in the world, where no one keeps me com-
pany, because they would die of cold. The abbe
goes backwards and forwards over liis affairs. I am
there thinking of Provence, for that thought never
leaves me.'

The chateau in which this wonderful woman
lived, whence started so many couriers to Provence,
is an imjwrtant building, gray, a little heavy with

WEARY

CHATEAU DES ROCHERS 231

towers, with high turrets of slate and great win-
dows. Resembhng most houses built in the
Louis XIV. style, it is rather sad in design. At
the side is a chapel surmounted by a cross, a
rotund hexagonal building constructed in 1671
by the xVbbot of Coulanges. Inside it is gorgeous
with old rose and gold. One can imagine the
gentle Marquise kneeling here at her devotions.

Visitors are shown the bedroom of INIme.
Sevigne, now transformed into a historical little
sanctuary. The furniture consists of a large four-
post bed, with a covering of gold and blue, em-
broidered, it is said, by the Countess of Grignan.
Under a glass case have been treasured all the
accessories of her toilet — an arsenal of feminine
coquetry: brushes, powder-boxes, patch -boxes,
autograph letters, account-books, her own ink-
stand, books written in the clear, delicate, legible
handwriting of the IMarquise herself.

The walls are hung with pictures of the family
and intimate friends, some of which are very re-
markable. This room was called by INIme. Sevigne
the ' green room.' It still has a dainty atmosphere.
Here INIme. Sevigne passed a great part of her life.
Under a large window is a marble table where she
is supposed to have written those letters which one

28« BUriTANY

knows almost as well as the fables of T^afontaine.
Mme. Se\agne coloured the somewhat cold though
pure language of the seventeenth century, but
not artificially. She animated it, conveyed warmth
into it, by putting into her writings much that was
feminine, never descending to the ' precious ' or to
be a blue-stocking. The books that she loved,
and her correspondence, did not take up so
much of her time that she had to overlook the
details of her domain. Sometimes she had a little
fracas with her cook ; often she would be called
away to listen to the complaints of Pilois, her
gardener, a philosopher. She knew how to feel
strongly among people who could feel only their
own misfortunes and disgraces. She had a true
and thoughtful soul. This one can tell by her
letters from Les Rochers, which come to us in
all their freshness, as if they had been ^vl•itten
yesterday.

THE MASTER OF THE HOUSE

CARNAC

IN THE INGLENOOK

CHAPTER XX

CARNAC

The country round Carnac is solemn and mys-
terious, full of strange Druidical monuments,
menhirs and dolmens of ftibulous antiquity, ancient
stone crosses, calvaires, and carvings. Everything
is grand, solemn, and gigantic. One finds intimate
traces of the Middle Ages. The land is still half-
cultivated and divided into small holdings ; the
fields are strewn with ancient stones.

The I^ines of Carnac are impressive. You visit
them in the first place purely as a duty, as some-
thing which has to be seen ; but you are amply
repaid. On a flat plain of heather or gorse they
lie, small and gray and ghost-like in the distance,
but looming larger as you draw near. You come
across several in a farmyard ; but on scaling a small
loosely-built stone wall you find yourself in the
midst of them— lines of colossal stones planted
point-downwards, some as high as twenty feet,

235 30—2

236 BRITTANY

and stretching away to the horizon, on a space
of several miles, like a gigantic army of phantoms.
Originally the Lines of Carnac were composed of
six thousand stones ; but to-day there remain only
several hundreds. They have been desti'oyed bit
by bit, and used by the peasants as fences along
the fields and in the construction of houses.

We sat on a rock and gazed at these strange
things, longing to know their origin. What
enigmas they were, wrapped in mournful silence,
solemn and still, sphinx-like ! I endeavoured to
become an amateur Sherlock Holmes. I examined
tlie stones all over. I noticed that at the extremity
of one line they were placed in a semicircle. This
did not seem to lead me on the road to dis-
covery. Of what avail is it to attempt to read the
mystery of these silent Celtic giants ? Historians
and archaeologists liave sought in vain to find a
solution to the problem. Some say that the stones
planted in the fields are temples dedicated to the
cult of the serpent ; others maintain that this is
a sort of cemetery, where the dead of Carnac and
of Erderen were interred after a terrible battle.
They are variously taken to be sacred monuments,
symbols of divinity, funeral piles, trophies of
victory, testimonies to the passing of a race, the

A BLIND BEGGAR

CARNAC 237

remains of a Roman encampment. Innumerable
are the surmises.

The country people have their own versions of
the origin of these stones. The peasants round
about Carnac firmly believe that these menhirs are
inhabited by a terrible race of little black men
who, if they can but catch you alone at midnight,
will make you dance, leaping round you in circles
by the light of the moon with great sliouts of
laughter and piercing cries, until you die of fatigue,
making the neighbouring villagers shiver in their
beds. Some say tliat these stones have been
brought here by the Virgin Mary in her apron ;
others that they are Roman soldiers, petrified as
was the wife of Lot, and changed into rocks by
some good apostle ; others, again, that they were
thrown from the moon by Beelzebub to kill some
amiable fairy.

A boy was sitting on a stone near us. He had
followed us, and had sat leaning his head on his
hand and gazing backwards and forwards from us
to the stones. Out of curiosity to hear what his
ideas might be, I asked the child what he imagined
the menhirs Vvcre. Without a moment's hesitation
he said, ' Soldats de St. Cornely !'

Afterwards I discovered that St. Cornely is in

238 BRITTANY

this country one of the most honoured saints. It
is he that protects the beasts of tlie field. His
pardon used to be much attended by peasants,
who took with them their flocks of sheep and
cows. St. Cornely had occasion to fly before a
regiment of soldiers sent in pursuit by an idolatrous
king. In the moment of his fear — for even saints
experience fear — he w^ent towards the sea, and soon
saw that all retreat was cut off thereby. The oxen
fell on their knees, their eyes full of dread. The
situation was terrible. The saint appealed to
Heaven, where lay liis only hope, and, stretching his
arm towards the soldiers, changed them suddenly
into stone. Here, it is said, the soldiers of
St. Cornely have remained ever since, flxed and
rigid.

A ROMANTIC LAND

LA PETITE MARIE

V^:£^fPP

TsrsssTTT^s^

^t^

CHAPTER XXI

A ROMANTIC LAND

Brittany is essentially a romantic country. It is
fiill of mysteries and legends and superstitions.
Romance plays a great part in the life of the
meanest peasant. Every stock and stone and
wayside shrine in his beloved country is invested
with poetical superstition and romance. A nurse
that we children once had, nineteen years of age,
possessed an enormous stock of legends, which she
had been brought up to look upon as absolute
truth. Some of the songs which she sang to the
baby at bedtime in a low minor key were beauti-
ful in composition — ' IMarie ta fille,' ' Le Biniou,'
amongst others. The village schoolmaster, who was
our tutor, during our long afternoon rambles
would often make the woods ring as he sang
ballads in his rich, full voice. The theme changed
according to his humour. Now the song was a
canticle, relating the legend of some saint, or
a pious chronicle ; at another time it was of love

241 31

242 BRITTANY

he sang, generally ending sadly. Then, there was
tlie historical song, recounting some sombre, or
touching, or stirring event, when the little man
worked himself up to a high pitch of excitement,
carrying us children open-mouthed to gory battle-
fields and the palaces of sumptuous Kings. One
quite forgot the insignificant schoolmaster in the
rush and swing of the music.

There are many Breton ballads. The lives of the
people are reflected truthfully in these compositions,
which have as their themes human weakness, or
heartache, or happiness. The Breton bards are
still a large class. In almost every \'illage there
is someone who composes and sings. Each one
holds in his or her hand a small stick of white
wood, carved with notches and strange signs, which
help towards remembering the different verses.
The Gauls called this stick, the use of which is
very ancient, the alphabet of the bards.

Mendicity is protected in Brittany. One meets
beggars at all the fairs, and often on the high-
roads. They earn their living by songs and ballads.
They attend family fetes, and, above all, marriage
ceremonies, composing songs in celebration. No
Breton will refuse a bard the best of his hos-
pitality. Bards are honoured guests. ' Dieu vous

THE LITTLE HOUSEWIFE

A ROMANTIC LAND 243

bcnisse, gens de cette maison,' says one, announcing
himself. He is installed in the ingle-nook, the
cosiest corner of a Breton kitchen ; and after having
refreshed the inner man he rewards his host witli
song after song, often giving him the last ballad
of his composition. When he takes his leave, a
large bundle of food is slung over his shoulder.
Unless you live for years in the same village, as
I have done, sharing in the joys and sorrows of the
people, you can gain very little knowledge of the
tales and songs and legends. The Breton is
reticent on the advent of the stranger : he fears
ridicule.

Then, again, a child can always wriggle itself
into the hearts and homes of people. Setting aside
all racial prejudices and difficulties of language, a
child will instal itself in a household, and become
familiar with the little foibles of each inmate in
a single day, whereas a gi'own-up person may
strive in vain for years. I, as a child, had a Breton
bonne, and used to spend most of my days at her
home, a farm some distance from the village,
playing on the cottage floor witli her little brothers
and sisters, helping to milk the cows, and poking
the fat pigs. This, I think, JNlother could scarcely
have been aware of; for she had forbidden Marie

31—2

244 BRITTANY

to allow me to associate with dirty children, and
these were certainly not too clean. One day I
was playing at dolls wuth a village girl under the
balcony of JM other's room. Suddenly, on looking
up, I found her gazing at me reproachfully.

* O Mother,' I hastened to explain, pulling the
child forward by the pinafore, ' she are clean.' We
children were familiar with everyone in the village,
even bosom friends with all, from stout Batiste,
the butcher, to Lucia the little seamstress, and
Leonthie her sister, who lived by the bridge. If a
child died we attended the funeral, all dressed in
white, holding lighted tapers in our hands, and feel-
ing important and impressive. If one was born, we
graciously condescended to be present at the
baptismal service and receive the boxes of dragees
always presented to guests on such occasions. At
all village processions we figured prominently.

When I returned to Brittany, at the age of ten, I
found things very little changed. My friends were
a trifle older ; but they remembered me and wel-
comed me, receiving me into their midst as before.
IMy sister and I took part in all the pardojis of
the surrounding villages. We learnt the quaint
Breton dances, and would pace up and down the
dusty roads in the full glare of the summer sun

A ROMANTIC LAND 245

hour after hour, dressed in the beautiful costume
of the country — black broadcloth skirts, white
winged caps, and sabots. Often we would go
with our bonne and our respective partners into
some neighbouring debits de boissons and drink
sy7'ops in true Breton fashion. At one pardon we
won the ruban d'honnenr — a broad bright-blue
ribbon with silver tassels worn across the shoulder,
and presented to the best dancer.

The Breton gavotte is a strange dance of religious
origin. The dancers hold hands in a long line,
advancing and retiring rhythmically to long-drawn-
out music. Underneath an awning sit the two
professional biniou-players, blowing with all their
might into their instruments and beating time
with their feet to the measure. The sonneur de
biniou is blind, and quite wrapped up in his art ;
he lives, as it were, in a world apart. The joueur
de binmi, the principal figure, reminding one of a
Highland piper, presses his elbow on the large
leather air-bag, playing the air, with its many
variations, clear and sweet, on the reed pipe.

Brittany is the land of pardons. During the
summer these local festivities are taking place daily
in one village or another. Tlie pardon is a thing
apart ; it resembles neither the Flemish kermesse

246 BRIITANY

nor the Parisian foire. Unlike the f aires of Paris,
created for the gay world, for the men and women
who deliglit in turning night into day, the pardon
has inspiration from high sources : it is the fete of
the soul. The people gather together from far and
near, not only to amuse themsehes, but also to
pray. They pass long hours before the images of
the saints ; they make the tour of the ' Chemin de
la Croix,' kneeling on the granite floor.

Still, it is a joyous festival. The air is filled
with shouts and laughter. For example, in
Quimper, at the Feast of the Assumption, the
Place St. Corcntin is crowded. People have come
fi'om the surrounding towns, all dressed in the
characteristic costume of their vicinities. Pont-
Aven,Pont L'Abbe, Concarneau, Fouesnant, Quim-
perle — all are represented. You see the tight lace
wide-winged cap of the Douarnenez women, hats
bound with coloured chenile of the men of Carhaix,
white flannel coats bordered with black velvet of
the peasants of Gucm(3n(5, the flowered waistcoats
of Plea\'(5 ; the women of Quimper have pyra-
midical coifs of transparent lace, showing the pink
or blue ribbon beneath, with two long floating
ends.

The great square in front of the cathedral is a

AN OLD WOMAN

A ROMANTIC LAND 247

jumble of gold and silver, embroidery, ribbons,
muslin, and lace — a joyous feast of colour in the
sun. The crowd moves slowly, forming into
groups by the porch and round the stalls, with
much gossip. The square and the neighbouring
streets are bordered by stalls trading in fabrics and
faiences, gingerbread, sweets, lotteries, cider, and
fancy-work of all kinds. Young men and girls
stop in couples to buy mirrors or coloured pins,
surmounted with gold, that jingle, to fasten in their
caps or in their bodices. Others gather round the
lotteries, and watch with anxious eyes the wheel
with the rod of metal that clicks all the way round
on its spokes, and stops at a certain number. ' C'est
vingt-deux qui gagne !' cries the proprietor. A
pretty little peasant woman has won. She hesi-
tates, wavering between a ball of golden glass and
a vase painted with attractive flowers. The peasants
laugh loudly.

There are all kinds of attractions and festivities
at the pardons — hurdy-gurdies, swing-boats, voyages
to the moon, on which you get your full and
terrible money's worth of bumps and alarms ; for
not only are you jerked up hill and dowii dale in a
car, but also, when you reach the moon, you are
whirled round and round at a tremendous rate and

248 BRITTANY

return backwards. There are side-sliows in whicli
are exhibited fat women, headless men, and bodi-
less girls, distorted thus by mirrors, the deception
of which even we children saw through plainly.
There are jugglers and snake-charmers. A cobra
was fed on rabbits. We children haunted that
tent at feeding-times, and used to watch with
fascination the little dead bunnies disappearing,
fur and all, afterwards noticing with glee the
strange bumps they formed in the animal's smooth
and shiny coils. How bloodthirsty children are at
heart !

It is not always in large towns like Quimper^
that pardons are held. JMore often they are to be
witnessed in the country, perhaps miles away from
any town, whence the people flock on foot. There
you see no grand cathedral, no magnificent
basilicas and superb architecture, but some simple
little gray church with moss-grown walls and trees
growing thickly about it. The rustic charm of the
pardons it is impossible to describe. Round you
are immense woods and flowered prairies ; in the
woods the birds are singing ; a mystic vapour of
incense fills the air. Peasants gather round this
modest house of prayer, which possesses nothing
to attract the casual passer-by. The saints that

A PIG-MARKET

A RO.MANTIC LAND 249

they have come to venerate have no speciaHty :
they heal all troubles, assuage all griefs : they are
infallible and all-powerful. Inside the church it
is very dim and dark. Not a single candle is alight
on the altar ; only the lamp of the sanctuary shines
out with red gleam like an ever-seeing eye. In
the gray darkness of the choir the silent priests
cross themselves. They look like ghosts of the
faithful. The bells ring out in noisy peals, filling
the air with vibrations. Over the fields the people
hurry — girls in their smartest clothes, accompanied
by their gallants ; children brought by their mothers
in their beautiful new suits to attend service and to
have their faces bathed in the fountain, which cures
them of all diseases, and makes them beautiful for
ever ; old men come to contemplate the joy of the
young people, to be peaceful, and to ask forgi\-e-
ness before leaving this world and the short life
over which their own particular saint has watched.
The bells peal so loudly that one is afraid they will
crack under tlie efforts of the ringers. Still the
people swarm over the fields and into the church,
until at last the little edifice is full, and men and
women and children are compelled to kneel outside
on the hard earth ; but the doors are opened, and
those outside follow the service with great attention.

250 BRIITANY

One must be a Breton born and cradled in the
country in order to realize the important place that
the pai'don of his parish occupies in the peasant's
mind. It is a religious festival of great signifi-
cance : it is the day above all others on which he
confesses his sins to God and receives absolution.
Throughout his life his dearest and sweetest
thoughts cling round this house of prayer and
pardon.

Here it is generally that he betroths himself.
He and the girl stroll home together when the sun
has set, walking side by side over the fields, hold-
ing each other by the little finger, as is the Breton
custom. A sweet serenity envelops the country-
side ; darkness falls ; the stars appear. The man
is shy ; but the girl is at ease. When nearing home,
to announce their arrival at the farm, they begin to
sing a song that they have heard from the bards
during the day. Other couples in the distance,
hearing them, take up the refrain ; and soon from
all parts of the country swells up into the night air
a kind of alternate song, in which the high trebles
and the deep basses mingle harmoniously. As the
darkness deepens the figures disappear and the
sounds die away in the distance.

The Saturday before the first Sunday in July is

A ROMANTIC LAND 2.:J1

a fete-day in most to^^^ls. Pilgrims fill the towns,
which are packed with stalls for the fair. There
are sellers of cider and cakes, amulets, and rosaries.
A statue of the Madonna surrounded by arch-
angels against a background of blue is situated at
the church door to receive the homage of faithful
pilgrims. When night falls the door of the porch
is flung open, and a long procession of girls,
like an army of phantoms, advances, each penitent
holding in her hand a lighted torch, slowly
swinging her rosary and repeating a Latin prayer.
The statue of the ^^irgin is solemnly carried out
on the open square, where bonfires are lit and
young folk dance to the accompaniment of the
biniou.

In some places the dances are prolonged for
three or four days. The Bretons like songs and
dances and representations ; they like the heavy
pomp of pilgrimages ; they belie\e in prayer, and
never lose their respect for the Cross. They are a
fine people, especially the men who live by the sea,
sailors and fishermen — well-made, high-strung men,
their faces bronzed and stained like sculptures out
of old chestnut, with eyes of clear blue, full of the
sadness of the sea. They have an air of robust-
ness and vitality ; but under their fierce exterior

32—2

252 BKIITANY

they hide a great sweetness of nature. They are
kind hosts ; they are frank, brave, and chaste.
They have, it is true, a weakness : on fair days —
market-days especially — they abuse the terrible
and brutalizing vin du feu. Then, the Bretons
are not a very clean people. The interiors of the
cottages are dignified, with great beds made of
dark chestnut and long, narrow tables, stretching
the whole length of the rooms, polished and bees-
waxed until you can see your face mirrored on the
surface ; but pigs will repose on the stone floor,
which waves up and down with indentations and
deep holes. The more well-to-do Bretons have
their clothes washed only once in six months. The
soiled linen is kept above in an attic protected from
the rats by a rope with broken bottles strung on it,
on which the rats, as they come to gnaw the
clothes, commit involuntary suicide.

The poorer families have better habits. They
wash their few possessions regularly and out of
doors in large pools constructed for the purpose,
where hundreds of women congregate, kneeling
on the flagstones ai'ound the pond, beating their
linen energetically on boards, with a flat wooden
tool, to economize soap. This I consider a far
cleaner method than that of our British cottagers,

HOUSEHOLD DUTIES

A ROMANTIC LAND 253

who wash their clothes in their one living-room,
inhaling impure steam.

In spite of the winds and the tempests which
desolate it, the Bretons love their country. They
live in liberty ; they are their own masters. The
past holds profound and tenacious root in the
hearts of these men of granite, and the attach-
ment to old behefs is strong. The people still
believe in miracles, in sorcery, and in the evil eye.
The land, rich with memories of many kinds, — with
its menhirs, its old cathedrals, its pilgrimages, its
pardons — sleeps peacefully in this century of inno-
vations. In Brittany ever^i:hing seems to have
been designed long ago. AVherever one goes one
comes across a strange and ancient Druidical monu-
ment, menhirs, and dolmens of fabulous antiquity,
an exquisite legend, a ruined chateau, ancient stone
crosses, cuhaires, and carvings. It is a country
full of signs, and meanings. The poetical supersti-
tions and legends have been left intact in their
primitive simplicity. Nowhere do you see finer
peasantry ; nowhere more dignity and nobility
in the featiu'cs of the men and women who work
in the fields ; nowhere such quaint liouses and
costumes ; hardly anywhere more magnificent
scenery. You have verdant islands, ancient forests,

254 BRITTANY

villages nestling in the mountains, country as wild
and beautiful as the moors of Scotland, fields and
pasture-lands as highly cultivated as those of
Lincolnshire.

Brittany is especially inspiring to the painter.
You find villages in which the people still wear
the national dress. Perhaps, however, the time
is not far distant when new customs will arise and
the old beliefs will be only a remembrance. Little
by little the influence of modern times begins to
show itself upon the language, the costume, and
the poetic superstitions. The iron and undecorative
hand of the twentieth century is closing down upon
the country.

THE END

BILLINO AND SONS, LTD., PR^VTERS, OUILSroRD

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